Cicadas

Sadie and I were taking a short walk after grabbing a bite of lunch this afternoon. I was chitchatting with her about Luke 10 when she nonchalantly remarked, "wow...so many cicadas out today."

I stopped talking, and there they were. A chorus of cicadas so loud that I was stunned that I'd been completely deaf to them just moments prior. Like...stop-you-in-your-tracks stunned. I mean...maybe I heard them somewhere in the back of my subconscious, but I certainly wasn't actively listening to them until Sadie called them to my attention. The cicadas were practically roaring, but all I had been hearing was the sound of my own voice. 

I wonder how often the continuous loop soundtrack of my own perspective is so loud in my mind that I forget that there is an entire chorus whose voices I have unintentionally ignored.

There's a sermon in there.

"When you talk, you are only repeating what you already know.  But if you listen, you may learn something new." - Dalai Lama XIV