Wisdom

If I hashtagged, the hashtag to this post would be "reminding myself to shut up sometimes"

as I remember that a listening ear can perhaps speak more care than talking lips. 

Sometimes I think that the days when I was younger and shyer and

quite frankly, 

didn't know how to carry on a conversation, (#homeschooled....if I hashtagged)

were days where I also carried a wisdom which I have perhaps slightly lost now. 

Now I find myself being able to hold my own in conversation

but I also waste words, speaking thoughts just for the sake of speaking something. 

Making jokes simply to make a joke,

that probably only I will find funny.

 

Silence carries more subtly poignant and profound meaning

than a thousand thoughtless words ever could. 

As Spring is slowly approaching in Edmonton,

emphasis on the slowly....

Every time Spring seems to creep forward

Winter comes out another coarse gesture covering with the ground with snow...again.

But alas, Spring is still approaching and I can hear it in the birds. 

And as Spring is slowly approaching

and as I hear the evidence of this in the birds and in the wind and rain,

I am reminded to listen.

To not try and fill in the absence of words with words that would be but noise. 

When I walk outside, 

I can let my footsteps be footsteps.

I can let the songs being sung be music without lyrics.

I can let the beauty of the trees speak for themselves and just watch,

just observe,

 what each twisting branch and spring bud is trying to say 

through their movement in life. 

When I stop speaking and offering answers and solutions to everything...

I can ask myself, "what are the branches reaching for?"

"Who are the birds singing to?"

"Where is the wind headed and who will feel its touch today as I have felt it?" 

I know pretty soon, if I carry on this way,

 that I'll be telling you to sing with all the voices of the mountain

and that the herring and the otter are your friends.

But I'm not going to go there, because I don't really want to say or tell you anything at all.

This time,

I just want to listen. 

"Even a fool is thought wise if he keeps silent, and discerning if he holds his tongue" - Proverbs 17:28