Listen...

I learned a lot from my Grandfather. Well, he was not my real Grandfather; he married my Grandma when my mother was somewhat still young, so he was really my Step Grandfather which makes the things he taught me even more important since he taught me out of love and not out of duty. Anyway, I was thinking the other day that of all the things he taught me the most important one was this, to listen.
NowI am a horrible listener. I love to talk, finish sentences and tell stories. But way back when my Grandfather and I would go check on the cows (he had a ranch) we would be walking and all of the sudden he would stop and then say "listen". And that is exactly what we would do. I would turn my hearing on and try to figure out what he had heard and identify it. We would hear coyotes howling, calfes bawling, and on occasion someone shouting from the neighboring pastures when we focused on just hearing what it was out there to hear. It always amazed me that when we stopped what we were doing and just listened, all the things that we would hear that would go unnoticed most times.
Sometimes I think we need to slow down and just listen. Who knows what might be going on all around us that we never hear and might like to know about...