Description
In her new book, In Praise of Listening Christian McEwen reflects on listening (silence, music, nature, prayer, &c.) in a series of thoughtful chapters, each one focused on a different theme. When an athlete speaks of “listening to his body,” or a gardener describes herself as “listening to the land,” when writers and artists explain that they are “listening” to their work-in-progress, they are using the word as she chooses to use it here—as an extended metaphor for openness and receptivity, rippling out from the self-centered human to the farthest reaches of the non-human world.
As McEwen says: Most of us think of listening in fairly literal fashion: human beings listening (or not listening) to one another; the pleasure of attending to a familiar piece of music. But listening can have a far broader and more capacious meaning, moving out beyond the small apparatus of the ears to the hands or belly or enveloping spirit/mind.
In Praise of Listening is a kind of sister or first cousin to McEwen’s earlier, timely, and very popular, World Enough & Time (Bauhan Publishing, 2011 and new Second edition, 2023), with the same emphasis on creativity and slowing down.
Check out the interview with Christian by Gray Hardaker
Most of us think of listening in fairly literal fashion: human beings listening (or not listening) to one another; the pleasure of attending to a familiar piece of music. But listening can have a far broader and more capacious meaning, moving out beyond the small apparatus of the ears to the hands or belly or enveloping spirit/mind. In her new book, In Praise of Listening Christian McEwen reflects on listening (silence, music, nature, prayer, &c.) in a series of thoughtful chapters, each one focused on a different theme. When an athlete speaks of “listening to his body,” or a gardener describes herself as “listening to the land,” when writers and artists explain that they are “listening” to their work-in-progress, they are using the word as she chooses to use it here — as an extended metaphor for openness and receptivity, rippling out from the self-centered human to the farthest reaches of the non-human world.
—Kimberly Cloutier Green, author of The Next Hunger
Christian McEwen’s In Praise of Listeningis a lovely investigation of and meditation on listening, on its meanings and gifts. This book is both a guide and gift, a cause for wonder, and it has brought me even closer to the significance of the silence where I live, to how important its counterpoint with its other-audible family.In Praise of Listeningis a delight and a warning, a prayer and a service. I’ve spent hours with it, sometimes in my own silent reading, sometimes in full and happy out-loud. I’ve imagined voices, I’ve conjured memories, I’ve wandered through its singing and incantations. Deep gratitude for this book, this writer, deep challenges, deep joys.
—Mark Statman, author of Listener in the Snow: The Practice andTeaching of Poetry
Learning to listen extends far beyond our political divides, however. Christian McEwen has written a poetic and profound book titled In Praise of Listening. McEwen weaves together a vast amount of literary and spiritual sources, science, and personal stories to challenge us to listen to our world, one another and ourselves with more depth and precision.
Listening, she argues, is a way of being present. It is what we long for, yet what we so often lack, distracted by all the media around us, all that noise that pretends to be communication. “All too soon, not listening to other people becomes not listening to the larger world, and ultimately not even to ourselves,” she warns.
In a beautiful chapter titled “The Beloved Voice,” McEwen says, “Hearing is the first sense to develop in the human fetus, as it is the last to depart the dying body.” It is the mother’s voice that is first heard by the unborn child, and this voice becomes a lodestone for the infant. “The vocal nourishment that the mother provides … is just as important to the child’s development as her milk,” she quotes one expert as saying.
For all of us, McEwen argues, being heard is what we hunger for. It is so obvious, yet today we seem constantly to need to learn this anew. It is striking that when many survivors of abuse are asked what they want of the Church, so often it is to be heard. To hear is to recognize, to acknowledge.
McEwen’s book is an aural and soulful exploration of our world, contemplating the importance of listening to the world around us — plants and animals, even trees and moss! — as well as to our fellows and ourselves. While McEwen’s style would be best described as “spiritual but not religious,” one senses she is tapping into the wisdom of monks and sages, but also the wise women and men today who know the art of listening.
In a chapter titled “The little sounds of every day,” she quotes a cook, Alice Cozzolino, who talks about listening and focus as a part of her craft. We moderns suffer from “the addiction to the instantaneous,” but Cozzolino says, “that’s the antithesis of listening. Listening requires us to take a breath. It requires us to pause.”
McEwen ends her book with a simple quote by Brenda Ueland: “Listening is love.” It is what every spouse knows, what every child knows, what Pope Francis knows. It is what our world needs to learn once again.
From “Mary” at Goodreads:
The Art of Listening invites us to reattune ourselves in multiple ways at this especially disheartening time. You must read it. Once you have, you will want to give it to your friends as well – especially those who do everything with their phones except listen. The book is full of nourishment, skillfully blending many equally appealing ingredients: well chosen stories drawn both from the author’s comprehensive reading and from her own and others’ lives. They will tune your ears and help you pay attention not just to others and the natural world, but to your own inner voice. What could be more important? You’ll find the book entertaining, too, with fresh interviews sitting beside equally apt and accessible literary references. The book weaves together social commentary, the science of hearing, intimate personal experiences, entymological tidbits and much more. Buy it as a special treat to be savored now, marked up, dogeared and treasured for years to come.
Christian McEwen is a freelance writer and workshop leader, originally from the UK. She is the author of several books, including World Enough & Time: On Creativity and Slowing Down. Her articles have appeared in The Nation, The Village Voice, The American Scholar, and Lion’s Roar, and she has edited a number of books, including Jo’s Girls: Tomboy Tales of High Adventure; The Alphabet of the Trees: A Guide to Nature Writing; and Sparks from the Anvil: The Smith College Poetry Interviews. Christian has enjoyed residencies at Yaddo, MacDowell, Mesa Refuge, and the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and has received a fellowship in playwriting from the Massachusetts Cultural Council. She lives in western Massachusetts.
