The Bionic Ear

My dad was the best listener I’ve ever known.

As a director of Circle A Youth Camp for over 35 years, he learned the value of listening. He would listen to the campers, the staff, the parents. He would listen to his wife, my mom, who was the source of encouragement and energy to everything he did. He would listen to the Spirit of God and his own intuition. He would listen to his own mother, who had a direct line to God himself. He would listen to the volunteers who poured out their time and energy to keep the program going. He would listen to my brother and I, his own kids, who he still made time for in the midst of everything.

I am confident that each of these individuals he listened to would affirm my claim of his remarkable listening skills. I am certain that he made each of them feel as important, valued, and loved as he made me feel when he listened to me.

He modeled incredible listening, and people trusted him to teach it.

In fact, he held a specific class with the campers each summer called, “Communications”.  Really, it was a class about listening.

In Communications class he would teach those kids about eye contact, body language, and tone of voice. He would teach them the value of listening well, and then he would practice it with them.

If they left Circle A with one only piece of advice, it was probably this: “If you’re not looking, you’re not listening.” He would say it in Communications class, he would say it in seminar, and the leadership team would reinforce it in almost every activity. There is something palpably powerful about giving someone your eyes in an act of listening.

It’s funny, as I reflect upon it now, that’s probably why I still hate speaking on the phone for any sort of meaningful communication. There’s just something in me that knows how much I am missing without being able to see a person’s face and give them my eye contact in return.

When I was younger, I always wondered why Dad did that separate Communications class instead of just adding the teaching into what he taught in seminar. After all, the kids learned everything else sitting in a big seminar room all together. Why did this particular material have to be taught in a small group?

I finally realized it wasn’t about the teaching being in a small group. It was about what came after. After he did the teaching portion of Communications class, Dad did an exercise with each team called “The Shield”. He would have kids draw pictures of different things: their greatest accomplishment, their highest value, their biggest regret, and so on. Then, he would go around the circle and ask each kid to share the answers to those questions.

I always thought this was sort of a “team-building” exercise, where the team would draw together by hearing these stories from each other and by practicing listening to the best of their young abilities. And in some ways, it was.

But looking back on it, I can see the deeper intention.

My dad was listening.

My dad made the effort for every single to child who came to Circle A to have the experience of being loved by listening. They experienced an adult who looked directly into their eyes and listened to them talk about their hopes and fears and lives. Dad didn’t even have to say anything about what they said; what mattered to those kids was simply that someone was truly listening.

If I stop and think for a moment about how many lives were changed forever because of that one singular experience, I can scarcely take it in.

There is POWER in our listening. More power than we realize.

By the time each team had rotated through a session of Communications class with Skip, the camp had become something different. There was a respect and honor that those kids found for him; there was a desire to learn more from him.

He had taken the time to listen to them, and they in turn became open to what he had to say.

The skill of listening continued to be one of his greatest strengths. He knew how to ask questions – the right questions. And he knew how to listen to the answers. He knew how to find the truth, either that a person was intentionally hiding or that they didn’t even know themselves. He knew how to make every person feel respected and valued in a conversation.

It was his superpower. He knew how to listen.

He even claimed to have a “bionic ear”.

To be fair, the bionic ear thing was his mischievous side coming out a bit.

In the dining room at Circle A, there used to be a screen for a projector. It was concave, so the sound bounced off of it, and if you sat in just the right spot you could hear what someone was saying across the room.

My dad always sat in the right spot.

He would astound the kids by walking up mid-conversation at a table and adding a pertinent comment, or giving a loving correction, always with a giggle. Everybody thought he literally did have superhuman hearing.

In a way, I believe he did.

Author: Melody Farrell

Melody Farrell is the co-founder and acquisitions editor of Lost Poet Press. She also serves as co-pastor of Element Church Tampa and operations manager of Echo Media Group. She is associate director of Circle A Ranch, a program which teaches teenagers principles of leadership. She serves on the board of Grow Into You Foundation, a non-profit that provides coaching, mentoring, and housing for teens aging out of the foster care system. She is a wife, podcaster, musician, and mother of two from Sarasota, Florida.