Hearing what is not spoken requires giving your total attention to the other person. It is usually easy with a close friend or loved one. But to be able to give that level of attention to a stranger is to open ones mind to their non verbal communications. The pauses, the body language, the facial expressions. It requires listening with your heart as much as your ears even with a stranger.
Usually listening creatively is to listen outside the normal parameters. Listen outside the box instead of forming your own opinion or the opinion the majority would use.
Most of the time our listening ability is colored by one thing or another: what people say, popular opinion, that kind of thing. But if you listen creatively, you'll really open yourself up to that person who is talking and won't just jump right in and state your usual standard answer. You will for sure hear what she wants you to hear, what she needs you to hear.
It also widens your horizons, gains more friends, helps you to better understand what often lies beneath the surface.
Pretty much the plane fare is all you'll need. Once you get here, there are beds available all over the country for you to sleep in, and meals would be included, I'm sure.
No no no no, listen to this. I have it all figured out.
First, Jon, you need to build a boat and that won't take you very long, you can build it really fast since you are, of course, by now a master craftsman. So build a boat for the 4 of you, not a problem.
Then launch yourselves and that boat into the Pacific and go East, young man, go East. You'll soon get to Hawaii and you'll no doubt need to restock your boat kitchen and take a short break then you hop back on your boat and go sort of south east some more till you get to Nicaragua or Guatemala, either one should take you into the Caribbean, then just simply go Northward till you get to the Gulf of Mexico and from there hop on up to Louisiana/Alabama -- Demopolis is the town, I believe --where you'll float into the Tombigbee Waterway. From there you can practically fly straight North and you'll land about 5 miles from my door step on the Tennessee River. Park that boat at the marina and I'll pick you up right there on the dock and in 4 very short minutes you'll be walking through my front door.
How's that, Jon? Sounds like a perfect plan to me. Sure it's a few miles and a few days of boating but just think, once you hit the Caribbean, well, you're almost here. I've splashed up that Waterway several times and one time we did it in a day, that was really pushing it though, but it happened to be a fast boat.
Anyway, what do you think, Jon, it would surely be an educational trip for your boys!!!!
Jon, You better take a couple extra days building that boat. That way you can make it large enough to carry an Elephant and a full grown tree. When you land in the Tombigbee Waterway you can ride the Elephant with your family and have it carry the tree right to Sharon.
That is so true!! Only Zany!! And now I have these visions in my head of an elephant swaying down the road with this cherry tree and all of Jon's family on it's back!!!!
I love ya'll so I do.
