Listening to Faces

 trevor’s dictionary of lost words

One summer evening, I was sitting on a bench on Main Street reading my worn copy of Cry The Beloved Country.

I was marveling at the way Alan Paton listened to life. 

I began writing in my notebook and listening to the life around me.

I looked up and saw an old man shuffling by. 

He wore a tattered raincoat, mud splattered pants and holey shoes.

I could see his bruised feet battered by the hard streets. 

I watched him quietly, without speaking, only listening, as he passed by.

I was listening to something without words, because he wasn’t speaking to me or to anyone around him. 

Or was he?

“Maybe,” I thought, “Just maybe that’s because the most important things in life are the quiet things.

I listened in a way I had never listened before. 

I listened to the old man’s face.

Yes, I LISTENED to the old man’s face. 

I listened to each wrinkle along his forehead and around his eyes. 

“What made that wrinkle?” I asked myself. 

“Was it laughter or tears? 

Natural old age or deep suffering? 

Carefree living or a heavy, heavy heart?” 

I listened to his watery blue eyes. 

“Why are you looking down as you shuffle by?” I asked myself. 

“Are you holding back tears? 

What have your eyes seen?”

I listened to his dirty, unshaven cheeks. 

“Does anyone take care of you?” I thought. 

“Are you lonely?

Are you alone?”

Listening to faces is hard work.

It has to be developed slowly over time. 

We live in a world that teaches us to speak twice as much as we listen, or to speak without listening at all.

Yet, over time, listening to faces will grow the most important thing we can have in our hearts — deep empathy for each person we encounter every day. 

And, over time, listening to faces will grow the most important thing we can have in our hands and feet— simple kindness.

I stood and placed my arm around the shoulder of the shuffling old man. 

“Would you like to sit down and have coffee with me?” I asked.

Would you like to be my friend?”

I found a friend because I listened to a face.