Willing To Listen
Whether we are in Toronto, Toledo or Timbuctu, we are living in a giant global village. Interconnected, interdependent, it demands we broaden our horizons. Smart phones and You Tube have seen to that.
Broadly speaking, a world view is a set of expectations and biases we have formed that shapes how we see and feel about people in other nations and, indeed, even in our own cities and neighbourhoods – each with their own world view.
Accommodation isn’t always easy but as distances and time continue to shrink, it is good to remember that most of us, regardless of where we stand on the globe, are just trying to get through the day, striving to stay alive, better our conditions, to do the best by our families and those for whom we care.
We are not the same, of course. Our cultures, religions, educational backgrounds societal differences can make strangers of us – but only if we let them.
The songs we sing, the stories we tell, sounds and words that to others can sound foreign, even threatening. Still, as the world gets smaller, we need to make the effort to narrow the gap, remembering that a stranger is only a person whose story or song we have never heard – until we are willing to listen.