Porch #125 📚 The Listening Life Book Club

if we ever needed to hush up & listen with fewer pre-conceived notions & relentless hard-nosed opinions it'd be right about now ...

Hey dear booklovers, welcome!

I always took pride in being a pretty good listener.  Especially since that's what I did for a living. Clients and friends, support group participants and church people told me so.  (Even a couple of family members reluctantly agreed.)  And I believed them. As a woman in ministry in conservative circles, I had worked hard to tote that string of letters after my last name, to prove to myself and those around me that I’d gained a level of knowledge and experience in the field of pastoral counseling.

And then along came Adam McHugh and The Listening Life: Embracing Attentiveness in a World of Distraction.

Turns out that some of my rather prideful assumptions were quite out of kilter. 

The Listening Life is our 1st 2024 Book Club selection.  To say I'm excited would be an understatement.

I can't help but believe that Adam's award winning book will upend, shake around, and pivot much of what you perceive about your own ability to listen.  In your personal relationship with God.  As you connect with those closest to you or those experiencing deep pain.  As you consider what nature whispers.  As you pay attention to your body, your emotions, and those ongoing 'scripts' you believe.

And how we do listening in the church.  God have mercy on us all.

Adam muses, 'The question that drives this book is, how would our relationships change, and how would we change, if we approached every situation with the intention of listening first What if we approached our relationship with God as listeners?  What if we viewed our relationship with nature as one of listening?  What if we approached our relationships using our ears rather than our mouths?  What if we sought to listen to our emotions before we preached to them?' 

McHugh's the kind of guide you'd choose if you were taking a long, winding journey to someplace unknown.  He's wise, he's got a keen sense of humor.  He knows where he's headed, because he's the first to admit the mistakes he's made in the past.

If you like reading with a highlighter or pen in hand, you'll be using yours full throttle.

The section on How To Be a Bad Listener is worth the cost of the book alone as you discover how bad listening often masquerades as good listening.  You might spy yourself in the scenarios he paints ... you'll smile, you'll wince, you'll find yourself convicted.

This is a soul-stirring and convicting read, yet not at all ponderous or preachy. Adam’s anecdotes will crack you up ... his wry humor is even interlaced in the book’s end notes.  Christianity Today listed The Listening Life as one of the 'books most likely to shape Evangelical life, thought, and culture' in their 2017 Book Awards.  

As I said up top, we need to take a deep dive into this topic. Now.

Ready? Let’s go! 

➡️ Grab your paperback or Kindle edition of the book.  Start reading.

➡️  Mark your calendar. Our 3 online Book Club sessions will be up and running the first 3 weekends in February. Simply show up any time and start chatting in the comment section. (Yep you, yes you, are invited.)

➡️ We’ll cover 3 chapters each week. And if you're not reading along, please drop by anyway and jump on into the discussion.  

‘Adam McHugh has been a significant contributor to the conversation about how introverts experience the world. His new book, The Listening Life, has the power to reshape how introverts and extroverts make space for deep listening in a world that swims in the shallows. Highly recommended.’
- Susan Cain, author of the #1 NY Times bestselling books, QUIET and BITTERSWEET

Let’s talk about your online book club experiences. Any questions on how this works. Your listening skills (or lack thereof). Or what you need most from our upcoming dialogue.

Linda

🛎️ yep, eagle-eyed old friends, this is ringing a bell from our 2016 Book Club sessions

🛎️ each mid-month, PORCH (a Christ-centered weekend newsletter featuring gentle conversation, calming snapshots, uplifting linkage, & occasional surprises) happily merges with THE BOOKBAG (where we compare notes about what we’re reading)

🛎️ you support my work when you click Amazon links here & go shopping

🛎️ linking up with with longtime pals Anne . Paula . Andrew . Joanne . Maree