Writings: What do you hear?

Some days, do you get the feeling you’re missing something?

This is a story a friend of mine told me:

I was walking down the sidewalk on a busy New York City day with a friend who lives in the forests of Brazil. He stopped, cocked his head & said, “Listen! I think that’s a robin.” And sure enough, we looked up and there was a bird on the sign above us. I said, “Wow, how could you hear that, with all the city noise here?”

My friend said, “You hear what you are trained to hear,” and took a handful of change from his pocket and scattered it on the concrete at our feet. Immediately, people turned and stared, and bent over and started picking it up; the sound was not even as loud as the bird’s song in the city din.

“See?” he said. “You hear what you hear.” He smiled.

Seems to me there are plenty of songs going on around me, that I miss because I listen for coins, not bird songs. Sometimes the song is a smile from a friend that I miss because I’m too worried about something.

Sometimes it’s something blooming on the bush when I’m walking & thinking deep thoughts about things that aren’t blooming; often I miss a song from today because I’m focused on something that happened in the past.

The guy in the story above says, “You hear what you are trained to hear,” and I think it’s possible for us to re-train ourselves.

This week I’ve looked for & found a new song each day – something I hadn’t noticed that is right around me, but that I couldn’t hear or see or taste or smell or feel because of the head-din in the city of my mind. I stop, I breathe, I listen, and there are new things all around.

And it makes each day new.

Try it & let me know how it goes for you.

Loving what you do –

Brother Ian