Listen to my voice; I will be your God and you shall be my people. Walk exactly in the way I command you, so that you may prosper. But they did not listen to me, or did they pay attention.
Jerimiah 7:23-24
God the Father sent instructions to His children-His chosen people
For their own good
Yet their poor choices led to heart breaking consequences
Too often
That has described me too
So now
One of my life’s goals is to shorten the distance between what God asks of me
My actual doing it
God’s first counsel here is: Listen
Active listening is something we all can practice
By offering a concerted effort to hear what is being communicated
Before adding new thoughts to the conversation
The hearer carefully repeats back what was said
Try it
What I heard you say is…
Active listening allows the speaker to restate their part
If not yet fully understood
While offering the receiver a chance to get it right
Pat Gohn
Turned to poetry: Jac R. M.
Poetry Form: Free Verse
( * \EP-uh-gohn\, noun:
An inferior imitator, especially of some distinguished writer, artist, musician, or philosopher )
Put these tears to bed,
each grand, eloquent, emptiness;
god has fallen from the tumbling sky,
and the moon is but a wind tonight.
The dead, seeing no difference,
have nothing to say; no compass to guide,
and night, without children,
pools in the disinterest of shadow.
Put these clocks to censure;
hope is but the friendly shout of youth;
how she passed my notice without notice
and fades; a gentle lighthouse sweep;
my heart, the fractious shore.
---------------------04/12/01