Words. Lethal, loving, open, wall building. I have been thinking about how words are used and how they are spoken, how they are written, how they are received. What was intended and what was heard are not always the same. What was written and how the words are perceived do not always match up. We all bring such different perspectives to our hearing and our reading of words. What might be a red flag to me, may not even be a pale shade of pink to someone else. I have been thinking a lot about the limitation of my own perception of words and how I have used that to label people. Honestly, I want to put my label gun away. It sure causes problems. It is amazing how fast I can start to classify people, and shove them into little boxes that I label and ignore. I won't listen to that, or read that because in my opinion it means...

I got a lesson in words the other day while driving my mom around. She was telling me a story I have heard SO MANY times. I always derail the story or redirect it because I simply cannot bear to hear it AGAIN. But I decided Friday that for once I would just let her finish. I am working on listening more thoroughly. Its hard. So, I let my mom tell the whole story, right to the end. In the past I had always gotten mad thinking my mom did not understand. I thought she was telling me about how much better off she was, but that was not it at all. For the first time I heard her grief over a person we love being shamed because of their poverty, of being treated as invisible and also for not being honored for their hard work despite their circumstances. When I heard her tell the story ALL THE WAY THROUGH my heart hurt. In the past I had been so busy putting my mom in her box that I did not hear what she was trying to express to me. But, I also felt something else, I felt grateful to have a mom with such a big heart. Words matter. Stories matter. Listen and read all the way through.