Listen

Listen As business takes over my life – rushing here and thon, taking care of others, I often forget to stop and listen. On a quiet day, I can hear the sounds around me, not just car doors slamming shut, the mailman coming down the street (nothing else sounds like the current mail trucks), and the birds, but the squirrels chattering away. Today there are 5 cavorting in a tree together, chattering away, playing tag, checking out the 3 squirrel nests (so much large than bird nests) in the tree. Even the wood in the fireplace makes noise as it burns. Even when the house is silent at night, it’s never totally quiet. I can hear the ceiling fans as they turn, and occasionally get out of balance. The fan on the hvac system pushing the air through the house. The house settling onto its foundation. The ice maker in the refrigerator periodically dumping a batch of ice and refilling itself with water. The high pitched sounds of transformers and routers in this electronic world and periodically the printer doing a “self check”. Even the wood in the fireplace makes noise as it burns down. When storms come, I hear the wind and rain as they come down, hail bouncing off the roof and gutters. While I have yet to discover how to listen to sunshine, I do know how to listen to the birds as they sing their song of gratitude for it. I can’t hear the butterflies either, but I know their wings whisper around me, just as the angels’ wings do. I glory in the quiet that isn’t. Connected to everything, but separate, it wraps around me like a blanket soothing me as I listen.