Note-taking is in my DNA. I just can’t help it. Whether I’m listening to a TED talk, attending a live presentation, or watching a YouTube or Udemy training, I retain the message stronger and longer if I physically take notes.
Sometimes I even take notes in church. Although our church’s sermons can be found online, if I hear something on Sunday that speaks to my soul, I’ll jot it down at the top of the bulletin. Such was the case with one of Father Ben’s recent sermons. He posed this challenging question: What if we are left unchanged by an experience?
Go back and read that again. Say it out loud. Because it is profound.
Our time is one of our most highly prized resources. We don’t want to waste it or use it on something we will regret. So when we invest our time in an experience, subconsciously we are looking to be changed somehow by that experience.
It would be impossible, of course, to have every one of our experiences be an earthshaking one. But consider that when we hear beautiful music, we may embrace a sense of calm. If we listen to an uplifting podcast, we may experience motivation to make a change. Spending quality time with family or friends can fill our hearts with joy and peace. An hour’s worth of playing with children reminds us that it is indeed freeing to act silly and that it feels great to laugh out loud with others.
A major experience such as a vacation to the Grand Canyon can change us by shifting our perspective to WOW! And those terrible experiences where we wonder if we can ever get past them? Well, those change us as well.
Most of us tend to live life at such a hectic pace that we don’t consider how we are changed by the experiences in our daily activities. Can we slow down just a bit to consider them, to look for them, to ponder them?
Now that the winter weather is here (at least in Virginia), I begrudgingly take the dog out for the cold, right-before-bed pee time. Instead of muttering please-hurry-up-and-go-NOW comments to the dog, what if I would lift my face to the night sky and look at the moon and the stars? That experience of resentment could be transformed into one of gratitude for living where I can truly see the night sky.
I’m convinced if the world would apply this standard of looking to be changed by each experience, the genre of reality TV would cease to exist. And maybe we’d stop watching political rhetoric and the daily sensationalism of what used to be actual news.
Obviously, I was not left unchanged by the experience of Father Ben’s sermon. And if this post has resonated with you, well then neither are you.
