Listening

"To truly listen is to risk being changed forever." Sa'k'ej Henderson

I wonder if that is why so few people really listen.  To risk being changed forever is quite a risk.  Most of us like our comfortable -- if not always highly functional -- ways of interacting with the world.  We like our opinions, our beliefs.  To risk changing them is to risk changing who we are.  And then where would we be?!  Perhaps we would be just where the Divine wants us to be.  Unfettered by the clutter of long-held opinions, beliefs, judgments.  Fully centered in who we are so that we can listen and be changed by information from outside us.  A friend who worked in geriatrics once said that people do not change as they get older, they just get more of who they are.  It is prudent, then, to take a look at who we are; and - if we don't like all of what we see, change.  One of the ways to change is to listen.  Really listen.  Without judgment, opinion, criticism.  Today, let us listen to one other person for three minutes.  What did you learn about yourself by that listening?