Blog 2207 – 11.02.2021
Hear Ye
The ole proverb is: “Since we were given two ears and only one mouth we should try to do justice to our ears and listen at least twice as much as we speak.” Conversational intercourse as the more talked about and thought about one is meant to be a two way street with both parties adding to the mix. My dad loved to tell stories and to hear himself talk and I suppose I do as well. But even as hard as it often was “to get a word in edgewise” with dad, as another saying goes, my dad could listen when it was important that he hear. His love was not as fierce and demanding as my mom’s but it was as deep and could be equally counted on.
Many children blame their parents for their challenges in life and have trouble forgiving them for their shortcomings and sometimes poor parenting skills. My parents were not perfect, none of us is, but I sincerely believe that they did the best they could by my brother and I with what they had to work with.
A young Keanu Reeves in one of his early movies, Parenthood says, “You have to have a license to drive a car, to even catch a fish, but any @#$& can be a parent.” Many young inexperienced parents with little education and whose own parent were in the same situation make a lot of mistakes raising their children and try to make it up to them being better grandparents. Sadly half my own country believes that Hilary Clinton’s book about it taking a village to raise a child was some kind of Communist plot to take away their parental rights and usurp their authority. Grandparents, teachers, and professors are not the enemy.
I confess I have sometimes painted politicians, salesmen, and even preachers with that label, but we have only one real enemy of our souls that wants to robs us and our children of the best that this life has to offer and that is ego. His/Her biggest lie is always the same: “Listen only to me, I am the only one who knows the truth, the only one that can save you. Everyone else is out to get you.” Ego is at the root of all propaganda.
The dictionary defines propaganda as:
When most people think of propaganda they think of the Nazi propaganda machine or the Communists or the opposing political party to their own. Bill Maher, comedian, political commentator and professed atheist, joked last Friday evening on his HBO show, Real Time, that instead of putting Bibles in hotels we should put dictionaries. Perhaps we should so people could learn that words have meanings.
I do not believe it is anyone’s job, not Bill Maher’s, mine, teachers’, preachers’, politicians’, pitchmens’ or even parents’ or grand parents’, to teach us what to think, but how to think, how to weight all the evidence and come to our own conclusions about things.
I think often of the first of the Ten Intentions for a Better World:
“I refrain from opposing or harming anyone, I allow others to have their own experiences, I see life in all things, and honor it as if it were my own. I support life.”
We live in a world of strong opinions where people have been taught to believe it is more important to be right than in is to be kind. Where so many think they need to control the narrative more than to listen, that the words that come out of their own mouths are holy and all the rest broken.
Hate always shouts, love listens, and learns, hallelujah.
Your friend and fellow traveler,
David White
Hallelujah
theencouragingword 