Blog 2193 – 10.19.2021
The Listening Ear
There is a reason that two ears together make up the shape that is the unmistakable international sign of love, the heart. Nothing says I love you so much as a listening ear. In this daily blog I get to say whatever is on my heart and mind and I hope that I am able to say it in a way that is entertaining, enlightening, and encouraging, to your listening ear.
A few years before her passing in 2012 at the tender age of just thirty-two my darling daughter, Emily Elaine White, sent me on one of her famous mixed CD’s a Beatles’ song from their last album together, Abbey Road. It is actually the last song they recorded, all four of them, together and is titled appropriately, The End. Unless you listen carefully and to the very end of the song you will miss the brief but poignant message:
“Making Love” is a euphemism for sexual intercourse and if done well there is little more stimulating to the body, mind and soul than great sex, even less than great sex for that matter. Intercourse is a word itself that usually refers to talking together and listening together. Everyone marvels at a baby’s first words, but most of us fail to take much notice when they first start listening. In the HBO series from some years ago, Boardwalk Empire, we are introduced to a young Al Capone, who though he was a gangster in the worst sense of that word was also a family man who dearly loved his little son, still in the series it was a visiting friend that first noticed the little boy was deaf. Al was too busy talking to listen, to see that his son could not hear.
I believe the greatest gift of love that we have to give is two listening ears. With one ear we listen with our mind and with the other with our heart, reason and emotion, the right and left sides of our brains. To really listen and to really hear requires both. Guys, most of the time when ladies talk it is not to seek our advise or problem solving expertise. If they want that they will ask for it specifically. Most times they are just unpacking their burdened hearts hopefully to someone who cares without judgement or condemnation. And girls, we guys are usually full of it, bravado, macho, and bluster, (Like the Beatle song, The End), but if you will listen closely you will in the end hear the little boy in us that wants nothing more than to love and be loved. The reason we guys so love and worship our mothers, flawed as even the best of them are (but then aren’t we all), is because they loved us the best they knew how, and who among us isn’t in one way or another always on the look out for that?
To quote again Paul McCarney’s last recorded verse as a Beatle (though the song writing credit is attributed to Lennon and McCartney, John said it was all Paul even misquoting it a bit in an interview):
“And in the end, the love we take, is equal to the love we make.”
Thank you for listening.
Your friend and fellow traveler,
David White
When You Say Nothing At All
theencouragingword 