Tao Out Loud Newsletter Volume 5: The Magic of Listening
Welcome to Volume 5 of the Tao Out Loud newsletter where we’re finding everyday magic, every day! If you’ve come here by chance, or a friend passed this on, I hope you’ve come to stay. Sign up below so you don’t miss a thing.
Magic Deconstructed (Part 5)
[ 2 min]
Gratitude is not just giving thanks for the blessings you can perceive, to see value in what is right before you, but being optimistic enough to perceive the blessings that may yet be hidden or on their way.
Extract from Volume 4
I
We’re still mining for magic in our everyday lives. Mindfulness, Action, and Gratitude have been pointing us toward where the getting is good. If you’re new here and want to catch up on the rest of the conversation, past volumes are available to you on the archive.
Today, we look at the I of M-A-G-I-C. It’s a tool that can be wielded at any age and time, but often it lies buried at the bottom of the sack, like an old plaything we’ve decidedly outgrown.
The optimism I talked about above is impossible without it; being able to perceive what you can’t see takes two things: faith, and imagination.
Imagination
A lot of people don’t sit still long enough to imagine anymore. They hop from task to task, ticking them off gleefully as they go, soothed by the idea that being more productive makes them more valuable. They overcommit or try to extinguish fires someone else should be putting out. Then find themselves up late at night with a mind that won’t shut off.
Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what you desire, you will what you imagine, and at last, you create what you will.
George Bernard Shaw
How we think is crucial to how we build. God’s imagination created an entire existence from nothing. Think of all the inventions that have changed the world for better, because someone dared dream of what could be. What we imagine about other people sets the tone for our interactions with them. What we imagine of ourselves is what we will have. Imagination can take us out of drudgery and lead us into great adventure, if we let it. It gives us boldness to face challenges by strengthening our resourcefulness.
But,
Imagination is a muscle that has to be developed.
Crystal Evans Hurst
How often do you allow for margin to just let your mind wander? Give your brain some space for ideating and creating. Reclaim some time to relearn the art of using your imagination. When you’re filling up your calendar for July, how about penciling in a little boredom—exercise that glorious muscle—and let me know what you come up with?
Continued in July’s newsletter with C…
Know someone who might like this newsletter? I’d love you to share it with a friend.
Details are magic.
Laura Belgray, 5 Secrets to Writing Non-Sucky Copy for Any Medium
To say you have no choice is a failure of imagination.
Jean-Luc Picard, Star Trek: Picard
As you meditate on the scripture make yourself the character. Love him with your imagination, use it, let Jesus be your daydream.
Misty Edwards
Imagination is the true magic carpet.
Norman Vincent Peale
The year is made up of minutes. Let them be watched as having been dedicated to God. It is in the sanctification of the small that the hallowing of the large is secure.
G. Campbell Morgan
…[Your] desires invite you to journey to places you never imagined you’d go. Possibilities start looking more like custom-built purpose, and it’s hard to dismiss what suddenly seems reachable.
Extracts from my Engineered Tension series. Part 1 Part 2 Part 3
[ 2 mins ]
The Magic of Morning Song
Some mornings I get up to summer birds singing to each other right outside my window. It’s a symphony of sound like the hum of a marketplace, or the din of schoolgirls back and forth on the walk home from school. The voices are distinct. I imagine what they might be saying, what stories fly back and forth between the trees. As I lie there and listen, awake on the inside, such joy fills my soul, and I smile.
The Magic of Listening Well
The way we listen is a demonstration of the way we love. We cannot truly listen without quieting everything else that competes for our attention. Sometimes that noise is outside us, and sometimes it comes from within.
To listen is to treasure every word, not to skip over or preempt it. Not to stifle or lessen it, or assume we know better. To listen is to create space in mind, life and time. To reserve room for your own beliefs to be challenged. It is to slow yourself down to your senses and engage every faculty.
I’ve been listening all month to voices emerge from different cultures, from multi-coloured mouths sometimes silent, sometimes loud. To truly listen we must hear even what is not said. We must listen to body language and hear with hearts not ears alone.
We must tune in to the voices of the broken, to the voice of our loved ones, to the voices we’ve never heard and those we think we’ve heard before, lest they say something new. To listen is to learn. Sometimes all they want it to be heard, and in this we can never overdo.
We must close the door and listen to the Lord. He is speaking, whispering, shouting, interceding. He is urging, challenging, cautioning, encouraging. We must rush into His Word before the world rushes in to ours.
This baby’s response, after they installed his first hearing aid.
These free colouring pages like the one below. 258 pages to be exact. And an app.
These wise words from @pastormichaelphillips.
Denzel Washington’s Life Advice (and who am I kidding? also Denzel Washington). Actually, the wonderful Mr. Washington has always reminded me of my Dad, so with Father’s Day just passed I thought I’d throw him in there. Happy Father’s Day to all the gentlemen, and to the ladies…You’re welcome.
Some of my favourite people, Chip and Joanna Gaines and their kids, demonstrating how to listen well at a time when it is well needed.
These audio sleep aids:
Abide as an app and on YouTube.
Nothing Much Happens bedtime stories for grown-ups app is available on Apple and Google podcasts. It’s also available as a printed and audio book.
and my personal favourite, ambient noise
Rain Rain app is great on Apple App Store
Ask Alexa to play Thunderstorm Sounds
This song that perfectly captures the voice of the Lord.
The eggciting moment I found out . . . The Worshicken isn’t a one man show. If you watch this or any of his fine covers, please make sure to take a gander (er, look) at the comments.
The story of Philippe Petit and his dazzling tightrope walk between New York’s Twin Towers is the backdrop for my latest three-part blog series. Read about the heights to which imagination took him. Read for keys to navigating the tension between day-to-day and dare to dream.
When we say, “Let’s grow old together!” do we think we ever will? Or do we imagine ourselves staying evergreen through changing seasons, forever young. If to age is inevitable may the years be kind, may youthful memories remain etched on the mind, may laugh lines be traceable to exact moments of joy, and greyer shades remind us that everything in life is not black and white. Sometimes it’s when we meet in between, that we preserve ourselves in time.
Dear Readers: Thank you always for your time, encouragement and attention. See you all again on July 22. Please leave a comment; I’d love to hear from you.