listen.

We were walking down a street.

London asked me, “Mom – did you see that sign back there?”

I hadn’t, so she explained to me what the sign had said.

“Mom.  It was kind of cool.  It said –

No God.

No peace.

Know God.

Know peace.

I like that.  Get it – no and know?  I think that’s true – do you?”

And you know what?  Thoughts are funny things.

My immediate thought was to think about how I’ve seen that little phrase written down dozens of times.  I’ve read it before.  So much that it feels cliche and church bulletin-ish.

Maybe I even thought about making fun of the sign for being so predictable.

I could have said, “Yeah.  I’ve heard that before.  It’s been around for ages.”

Which would be a true statement to make.

I hesitated before I spoke and thought about what was really happening here in this ordinary, run of the mill, daily kind of walking-down-the-street type of conversation my twelve-year-old daughter and I were having.

What London was saying was – “Here’s something I find interesting.  I want to share it with you.  You might find this interesting too.”

If I had foolishly and without thinking responded with – “Yeah.  I’ve heard that before.  It’s old news” what I would have been telling my daughter was – “Your new knowledge is old to me.  I already know whatever you might tell me.  Why waste my time?”

That’s not the message I want to send to my girl.  Not even for a second.

I think I can say confidently that isn’t the message any of us want to send to our children through our conversations with them.

And yet.  How many times is that exactly the message that my voice and my words and my tone and my attention (or my lack thereof) precisely send to my children when they spend the time to talk with me?

I want to do better.

I want to hear their new discoveries with ears open to first-time discoveries.  (And eighty-secondth time discoveries.)

I want to stop what I’m doing and look into their eyes.  And listen to the words coming out of their mouths.

It was a flash of all this on the sidewalk as London shared the poem with me.

I looked at that cute kid’s face and smiled.  Reached for her hand and said, “Yes.  I like that too.  It’s clever and true, isn’t it?”