Listening

I was doing some errands this afternoon listening to NPR, as usual, and as usual, their programming is fantastic. All last week, as a matter of fact, I listened to 'the story' and 'this american life' among other programs and learned new perspectives on our collective history as Americans, particularly the stories of many black Americans who had the courage to speak out, go to jail, and in general, suffer the wrath of parents and other authority figures (not to mention prejudiced persons) to begin the process of some of what we're all experiencing now. For real.

Today, though, I was listening to the entire speech that Dr. Martin Luther King gave in 1963, his "I Have a Dream" speech for the first time as an adult. It's different now then it was when I had to learn about it as a teenager, and radically different in the present, against the backdrop of Mr. Obama becoming President Obama tomorrow.

I Had Goosebumps. My entire body shivered with emotion and my eyes began to well up with tears at 50 mph. I had to pull into a parking lot because my vision was blurred, and more importantly because I really had to listen. His voice, even in a recording some 40 years old, resounds with courage, conviction, hope, optimism and the knowledge that a day like tomorrow would come. I was compelled to be there, in that moment this afternoon with all of my being. I wish that he was alive to be a part of this, can you imagine?

so today, I really listened - not just listened like I did in a social studies/history setting so many years ago.... I mean that today I listened with my whole entire body, mind, soul and spirit - and I am better, brighter, deeper, more luminous, more expansive and lighter because I really listened.