"Listening with the Heart"

"Learning to listen with the heart moves us

from the role of observers

and enables us to become participants with the Creator

in a world full of grace and possibility."

(Source: ‘Heart Whispers’ / Elizabeth Canham)

I have missed my Tuesday lunches at the local cafeteria … those lunches where I curl up in a booth and read as I eat. The holidays seemed to have disrupted my schedule, before and after Christmas, but now I’m back into a routine.

It didn’t take long for me to switch from reading to pretending to read yesterday. A daughter and her elderly father were eating in a booth nearby. I now know of her husband’s dreams for his business. “He doesn’t want a bigger place, Daddy, he just wants new buildings like he has now. But he knows that will never happen so we’ll just be happy with what we have.” After a few minutes, I knew that these cold and rainy days that we are experiencing were bringing a little bit of depression to her and causing her daddy’s bones ache. I overheard the woman lamenting over a brother she never sees and I listened as her daddy told of his best friend suffering with kidney stones. I knew that the daddy couldn’t hear well for there was repeating of words. She asked if he felt well enough to see the new grandbaby and he said, “No, not today.” “Maybe Sunday after church,” she said hopefully. “Maybe … maybe,” he softly replied.

Yesterday at lunch, I learned this … that in her rainy-day blues and his aching bones … in her sadness for her husband’s lost dreams and in the longing for a brother who had distanced himself for some reason … with the daddy’s concern for his friend in pain and her concern for her daddy’s health … with a newborn waiting to be held by her granddaddy and a granddaddy wanting to hold her … with the often misunderstanding of words because of the softness of a daughter’s voice and the difficulty of her daddy’s hearing, STILL when the server asked how they were doing, they both said, “Fine, we are just fine” without a second thought.

I walked away from my lunch yesterday hoping for the sun to shine soon, not necessarily for me, but for her. I hoped for bones to ache less and a kidney stone to pass. I hoped for the day when a granddaddy feels well enough to hold a newborn granddaughter and the moment when the little one smiles in her sleep while nestled safely in the arms of her granddaddy. I hoped for far-off dreams to be realized. Most of all, I walked away praying for a time when the words “Fine, we are just fine” means more than words said to a server.

Yes, learning to listen with the heart moves us from the role of observers and enables us to become participants with the Creator in a world full of grace and possibility.