Are You Listening?

Several times a week I will go to a coffee shop and sit with a good book and my journal.  Usually, I spend time reading, being challenged and then I journal my thoughts and perceptions.  I have journals all the way back to my days in college and it’s been a good discipline to put my thoughts on paper.  It helps me to take what is random and chaotic in my head and give it expression and order.  There have also been times when I’ve gone back and read what I‘ve written and have been encouraged with the growth and insights that have happened over the years.  Recently as I was sipping coffee at an outdoor table with journal open ready for my next entry I paused.  Selah. Hebrew for “pause and consider”.  Usually I’m all about sights, tastes, and smells.  I love going to a winery with a view and doing tastings.  I get the sights; mountains, hills, vines, trees, nature, it’s all beautiful.  I also get the tastes and the smells.  I savor the tastes and enjoy them, but I really love the wonderful smells of all the different wines.  Today it is different, it is all about the sounds.  I simply closed my eyes, leaned back, exhaled a couple times, waited, and listened.  First of course I heard cars, then a small plane, an ambulance, another coffee drinker, a barista, and the background music.  As I was drawn into the listening, I heard the leaves on a palm tree blowing in the wind, a distant songbird, and more cars.  I focused on the little fountain a short distance from where I was sitting, I really enjoy the sound of water.  I heard the lively sounds of a family coming in for breakfast.  I recently read an article by Greg Satell where he said that we live not in an information age but a communication age.  For communication to truly occur one must be able to fully listen and the more adept one is at listening and then responding to what’s been heard the more whole is the communication.  Perhaps in the midst of our waiting and listening who knows what or Whom we might hear.  Peace be yours today.