Listen To Your Self

For a moment
turn off the noise
and listen.

No music.
No video.

Simply be still
and try to hear You.

This might take some time -
because we have been inundated
and conditioned to have so much
sound become the background of
our lives that we don’t even
know what “We” sound like.

I often ponder what it is that
people want to drown out -
what it is inside they
do not wish to hear.

Why do they want to change the
channel & tune the station away
from what their heart, mind,
and soul wishes to tell them?

To me that would be like going
to the beach and facing away
from the sun as it sets.
At best you merely see shadows.
Why would you not want to see
the true beauty of the sunset?

Earlier I saw many shadows of the world -
many depictions of the darkness that
seems to surround us at every corner.

We’ve turned our backs to the light.

Rather than embrace the beauty
and the warmth of the light,
we have sought refuge within
the cold of complacency and in
shadows beneath walls of division.

Never in all my years nor in the history I know
have we taken such steps to keep ourselves
from being in harmony with one another.

At what point
did you turn your back to the sun?

When did listening to yourself
become more than you could bear,
and you found ways to tune out?

When did we come up with reasons
for not loving our fellow mankind?
Was it before or after we found reasons
to stop loving ourselves??

Because I have to tell you,
those who cannot find it within
themselves to truly love other people
- it is because they cannot love themselves.

They keep looking at their shadows.

They keep finding their perceived faults,
their supposed imperfections and differences.
They listen to the programming noises that tell
them how they should feel about their world.
They see their values of “right” and “Wrong”
tossed about in the winds of change and
are chastised for any beliefs that are
not shared by the popular of the day.
We are told that if we cannot accept
everything about another person,
it means we do not love them.

Stop the noise already.

Take the time you need
to listen to yourself.

You don’t have to like what you hear -
because it’s going to take a while to
sort through the lies and the untruths
that have taken up unwanted residence.

You’ll know you’ve found yourself
when you hear echoes of “I love you”.

And when you find it,
help someone else
find theirs