Holistic listening then

Orality focuses on the role of spoken words. The history of spoken words can be described by three main eras: aural-orality, writing and print, and electronic. The early period of aural-orality was marked by the dominance of the spoken and heard word. It continued long after the invention of writing and many of its features were seen up until the invention of printing. Though Old Testament Scriptures were written by hand, and the gospels were later to be recorded, (and Paul's letters to be sent), the ways of thinking and ordering thought among Jesus' disciples were most influenced by an unwritten culture of "word of mouth." Words operated very differently from what happened later when you could see them written down. Words were 'sounds' from within a person's 'interior consciousness' and these sounded out words were events in themselves. Hence the Hebrew word dabar means both word and event. Words were personal happenings with direct impact on the ears of the listeners.

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The ear was all-important. There was no other back up to memory. Communication was abortive if people failed to hear and to remember. Orality meant aurality. Important truths needed to be recalled afterwards. The primary way therefore for Jesus to engage his disciples in sustained thought and action was tied to hearing speech, to "think memorable thoughts" as Ong (1982,35) describes it. Sounding out words and listening to them were both essential for faith and community. Various techniques were developed to help the ear such as mnemonics, rhythms, repetitions, formulae, but the most obvious and far-reaching was the place of "stories." Accurate listening and ability to recall was fundamental to truth telling and truth living.

"Let anyone with ears to hear, listen" directly related to how words worked in an aural/oral culture. At the center of Jesus' discipling were sounded out words which created a community of the ear. Indeed, Wilson has described the era of the early church: "The authority of word as sound" (1992 17-66).

Babin,(following ideas of McLuhan 1969), has further emphasized the vital role played by the medium of communication within this aural/oral culture. "The message is not in the words but in the effect produced by the one who is speaking . . . modulation is the essence of audiovisual language . . . Modulation indicates vibration frequencies which vary in length, intensity, harmonics and other nuance . . . perceived by our senses and induce emotions, images even ideas" (1991,6). Christ's teaching not only concerns information and ideas, but also invites hearers into relationship with himself through audio-visual language. Babin asserts the importance of the communal life as Christian faith was learned through what he terms "immersion" from New Testament until the fifteenth century. "Immersion" describes how faith was communicated in an aural/oral culture characterized by "the pre-eminence of communal life, by liturgy and practice, by stories and images, and by the sacred part played by the person teaching." Hearers were drawn into a deep belonging where "there was no gap . . . between the sacred and the profane. The whole of life was bathed in a religious climate."(21). It was a total learning experience. "To understand is to participate."