As summer gets into full swing, people are emerging from their shelters tentatively wanting to engage with others in person and seeking that magical connection only face to face meetings invoke. I am getting out there too. This week I am having my own personal summer and want to be social, seeking out delicious interactions in people's gardens and out in parks and other wide and spacious places. It comes as no surprise that tact is what I need to guide me through the world today. I have arranged a number of spaces where I will interact with others. The conversations will mostly be free flowing, some directed by the material we may be studying, while others will just have a mind and direction all their own. How important is it that these conversations proceed with my participation being one of detachment? When I am caught up in the spinning preconceived notions my brain loves to conjure, I can and do find myself drawn in by them and then my whole demeanour changes due to often negative or derogatory thinking that translates into negative and derogatory words. Tact is then surreptitiously stripped from my words. Listening to the arguments advanced by the committee in my head, leads me to have a conversation with them and not the person facing me. This has happened more times than I can count. I choose to accept the mission to infuse my speech with tact today, to first listen and love by speaking the language that only our heart strings have the power to convey. This is an awesome task I find myself facing, but because the virtues exist in potential within all of us, it is not impossible. It means that I will be required to spend some more time listening to what others are saying and thinking about my words before they issue from my mouth. Perhaps the question that I will ask myself before I utter anything will be: will what I have to say uplift this dear soul? This exercise will give me the opportunity to pause and contemplate my words thereby offering only love and kindness to the heart before me.
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