Blogs - Chief of Pray Blog

The later flight thing yesterday didn’t work out. Just before the plane is scheduled to land, a thunderstorm breaks out and our plane is diverted to Ft. Meyers.  I’m back at my condo in West Palm after a voucher splurge on dinner and a taxi. Thank you American Airlines!

So, I pick up my mail (which I rarely do―this is my vacation home after all) and I glance at a piece from my synagogue here in town. I love my Palm Beach synagogue, but I am one of, maybe, three members under 60. And, that’s why I have to open a real mail box to read the Sabbath bulletin. Interesting message titled, "Read and Listen to Points of View With Which You Disagree".  This caught my eye. I totally do that all the time. I read Charles Krauthammer’s column and I watch FOX news, every time I visit with my Dad, because, it is ALWAYS ON AND TURNED UP VERY LOUDLY! Here’s the part I love in this message from Rabbi Joseph Telushkin: “If you seldom hear, read or listen to views that oppose your own, and if almost everyone you talk to sees the world as you do, your thinking will grow flabby and intolerant.”

That’s some good advice. The Washington Post ran an article this week about Lt. Col. Robert B. Brown, who is doing just that. Eight of his soldiers were killed in an attack by more than 300 insurgents in Afghanistan last year. Today he is listening to the enemy.  Negotiations are underway to form an alliance with the insurgent leader Mullah Sadiq, who agreed to work with the Afghan government and fight the more-radical Taliban insurgents. Listening as a path to peace? I sure hope so. Here’s a listening prayer we all can agree on.

Listening

Your voice is like the rain that gently hits the roof of my car.
It’s a song asking me to open a door and exit.  
Get up.  Move on.
Rise from there and laugh again.  
But all I want to do, for just now, is sit inside and listen.  
You make everything new again.  

-Miranda Claudius