What If We Listen?

 

Blessed One-ness,

Anger is noisy. 

So is revenge, resentment, rage.  

So

What happens if we sit and listen

Not to our first reactions 

Not to our friends 

Not to our leaders

Not to our screens

Not to any of the persistent din

But instead 

What happens if we decide instead 

To humbly listen to a different kind of noise,

To the unsolicited ambient sounds?

First perhaps we hear the birds 

Or the outside traffic then

Children playing,

Dogs barking,

The creaks in our walls 

A distant radio

A honking horn

The wind

The rain

Our breaths.  Our lives. 

Then perhaps, 

if we listen without judgement or preference,

We might hear the noise in the quiet 

Underneath the obvious:

The still small voices,

The mysteries 

Of pain and love

Of nuance and consideration 

Of hard decisions 

Of quiet covenants of obligation and doubt. 

And then beneath even those expressions, 

We hear our own heartbeats and many more,

Of so many different people and

Of so many other species,

All of us

Breathing, eating, making love,

Hoping to have fun and survive. 

We are all  companions in the big mysteries

On our one home, our noisy planet. 

Can we hear all that life?

And if we can, 

How can we dare to interrupt that music?

Amen