Mary’s view from Jordan Aug. 2015 – used with permission.

Here’s a way things are working in the U.S.  On January 21, 2009 I got in my car and drove south – then east – then north – then west.  A rough rectangle of American highways.  10,000+ miles.  I drove to listen to what people had to say.  My question:  What do you mean when you say the word change?

In the process, my purpose led to my own enormous gain.  That is, although not an explicit goal, I left far richer than I began.  All because of listening.

This happened again when I drove a similar route in early 2012 (defying the impossibility of stepping in the same river twice?) – this time with boxes of books.  100 Voices – Americans Talk about Change, the compilation of 100 American voices from across a vast range of experience and perspective.  A vast range for certain, but not exhaustive.  The more varied the range became, the more undeniable was the intricate weave of diversity in our country.

The first journey was chronicled in this blog – initiated as a travel log – a slice of American time populated by 100 lives and powerfully etched by the land itself.

And since then, the blog has given way to continued investigation of listening across difference.  Considering the ways listening characterizes and contributes to wisdom – the way it shows up in innovative and inspiring leadership – the way it guides healthy, resilient, and generative community.

In this spirit of listening, I posted last week’s guest blog:  Dr. Zaher Wahab’s latest description of life in Kabul.  Then, a few days ago, I heard from my niece, who is newly graduated from college and working in Jordan.  Another description worth listening to.

Today I was banned from Israel and Palestine for five years while trying to cross from Jordan for 2 days to take the LSAT. They said it was because I got rejected 4 months ago. And this time the word is I can’t come in again for 5 years… The officials offered nothing related to why I was trying to go (to sit for the LSAT), even though I’ve gotten into Israel successfully since I was first denied in June. I was still asking questions and requesting to talk to people when they escorted me out.  “You need to get out we want to go home.”

 Being detained for hours and turned away for something so small, still felt so devastating. At the same time, it all hits home as I watch refugees here in Jordan, and track the news.  From Lesbos to the U.S. Mexican border and beyond… the plights of people who are fleeing away and toward force us to challenge what borders really mean.  What purposes they truly serve? I can’t help but think, as a global community, we can all just do so much better.

We can.

There’s a story from an early meeting of European clergy with the bands of the Iroquois.  A young priest named Crum asked for and was granted audience with the leadership.  As the story goes, he took the august opportunity to share quite serious information, the story of Christ as he understood it.  When he was finished, the leaders of the five bands spoke together.  Red Jacket, leader of the Seneca, then reported their consensus to Crum.  As told to me, Red Jacket said something like, “The leadership asked me to say this.  ‘Good story.  Could be true.  Now, we’d like to tell you our stories.’”

Things got ugly fast after that.  Crum stormed away furious.  He had associates with similar responses who were armed.  We all live with the fall out.

What the Iroquois leadership demonstrated in that early encounter was listening.  Crum and his colleagues weren’t ready to listen.  They weren’t inclined or they didn’t know how.  Instead they were offended, likely offense as a thin veil on fear of not having it all sussed out – of not being 100% able to rely on the way the world looked to them.

All of this comes to mind today – when headlines unfold the war against “internal terrorists” launched by Syria and backed by Russia, even as the U.S. continues wracked by the shooting deaths last week in Roseburg, Oregon.

We are not listening to each other.  We are not listening locally.  We are not listening globally.  In my drive around the country in 2012 I repeatedly heard – from people across all walks of life – sincere desire to know how to listen, and equally sincere regret at not having those skills.

Many who hear this, doubt that the resolution of human conflict can reside in something as everyday as listening.  The doubt makes sense to me.  When, for example, is the last time someone really listened to you?  When did you last carefully listen to someone else?

My colleague Zaher Wahab cannot report listening in the public circumstances plaguing Kabul, Afghanistan.  And my niece Mary did not experience being listened to at the Jordanian border.  She did not experience being listened to back in June when she was initially denied entry to Israel in order to establish a girls’ soccer league among Palestinian refugees in Bethlehem – a program for which she had received grant funds and full clearance.

Any of us can paint ourselves with the broad strokes of “victimhood” in the face of such experiences, but both Zaher and Mary know that victim responses are of little use.

Listening, speaking, listening again.  The longing I heard in 2012 for real skill with listening from political conservatives and political liberals, from Christians and Muslims and Jews, from Latinos, Blacks, Asians and Whites – women, men, old, young, gay, straight, trans – this longing is evidence.  We the people of the planet seem to know that listening matters.  And we long for it.

Listening, speaking, listening to make sure you’re hearing what is being said – how the world actually looks from over there.  It’s worth a try.