I like it when people trust me enough to tell me things. It makes me feel like I have done something right. Like I am a right kind of someone. This is a decidedly different message than the one we often receive, isn't it? As what? Adults, maybe? No, that's not it... as kids we learn the lesson, too, quite quickly, with bullying efficiency. Slowly, we hear the repetitions...
...sticks and stones may break my bones...
...but words will never...
.HURT ME.
...do unto others...
...before they do unto...
...as if they were...
...you can't say anything nice, don't say anything at all...
We learn that trust is an incredibly valuable thing. We learn that words entrusted are precious. We learn that protecting ourselves isn't easy, so finding protection and solace in the space of another's kind care is maybe (just maybe) worth all we've got. It's certainly worth a lot of risk. Almost from the day we are born we keep thrusting our heart out in our hand, trying to see if someone else will grasp it oh-so-softly--keep it safe. Maybe this is what love is. What friendship is. And intimacy. And vulnerability.
Certainly, in our search most human, we look for someone to understand us. To LISTEN.
This is the beginning of a great adventure! Follow me--I will keep you safe! This is not a new adventure for any of us, but one we all embark on (and sometimes forget to remember we're taking together).
A LISTENING ADVENTURE!
In the coming weeks, months, and (if I am so very lucky) years, I am going to build and fortify The Listening Fort.
Is this place? Oh yes! So familiar and easily made so--you can find it and make one anywhere you like (I'll show you how)!
Is this a something you can hear? Yes! Listen to your heart and--better--the heart of another! You will find it there, most easily. But it is a frame of mind, built on beams flexible as they are strong, stretching toward another's ears, body, and soul.
Is it fortified and safe (as a fort must be)? Deceptively so. Though the walls are soft and warm, it is as safe as I will keep you.
For this is what LISTENING DOES, my friends--it offers protection.
Saying, speaking, being, and uttering... that is exposure of self. A letting loose of identity. Listening without judgment is safety.
And so I end my beginning with someone I have listened to when my fort needed fortification. When I had risked much and felt exposed. When I needed a friend to listen. Because I think listening and friendship so often go hand in hand:
And what is a friend? More than a father, more
than a brother: a traveling companion, with him, you can conquer the
impossible, even if you must lose it later. Friendship marks a life even more
deeply than love. Love risks degenerating into obsession, friendship is never
anything but sharing. It is a friend that you communicate the awakening of a
desire, the birth of a vision or a terror, the anguish of seeing the sun
disappear or of finding that order and justice are no more. That's what you can
talk about with a friend. Is the soul immortal, and if so why are we afraid to
die? If God exists, how can we lay claim to freedom, since He is its beginning
and its end? What is death, when you come down to it? The closing of a
parenthesis, and nothing more? And what about life? In the mouth of a
philosopher, these questions may have a false ring, but asked during
adolescence or friendship, they have the power to change being: a look burns
and ordinary gestures tend to transcend themselves. What is a friend? Someone
who for the first time makes you aware of your loneliness and his, and helps
you to escape so you in turn can help him. Thanks to him who you can hold your
tongue without shame and talk freely without risk. That's it. --Elie Wiesel (The Gates of the Forest)
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