Bus blog 11/04/09

In my new role as the Associate Director of Worldwide Voice In the Wilderness, (http://www.wviw.com) I am taking public transportation 3+ times a week. Dallas has a pretty good network of busses and trains that can get me to just about anywhere in the city. The Dallas Area Rapid Transit or DART (http://www.dart.org) has become my new driver.
I've only ever taking a bus or train when I was a child in school or while traveling overseas. We did take the subway a few time a couple years ago in New York City, but that's still like being in another country.
The rest of the world lives on the public transit system. In Honduras there is some loudly decorated people mover coming by almost every highway and biway at a seemingly unending pace of regularity. In Barcelona you can catch an underground train to any part of the city, or take the regional train south to beach front towns like Sitges or north into France. Heck, you can ride a train all over Europe moving from country to country in just a few hours.
For some reason in the US we are still a little bit behind. Some cities like New York currently have a great system in place, but natioanl travel by train is still pretty far behind the rest of the world. Granted, you can fly anywhere in America that you want to, but some how traveling with others by plain is a little different. Especially when you're taking the train or bus in an urban setting.
If you've ever taken a public transport mode of commute then you are quickly made aware that you are traveling with the masses. And masses means everyone. There are as many different kinds of people on the bus as there are passengers. Everyone is there own unique individual. You get the business commuters with their smart business attire and tennis shoes. I love that. You get the truest techies. You know the ones with dockers, short sleeve button down shirts and calculator watches. You have the gang bangers (or at least the wanna be's) decked out with the side ways cap with the perfectly flat brim and a little bling to boot. And you get the homeless man who's probably riding to just be somewhere safe.
The intersting thing I'm noticing is that really, we're all the same. Same wants. Same desires. We all watch the schedule to make sure we're not late. We all bring something to read to pass the time. We all keep to ourselves. Except in those rare occasions when we've made a friend with the driver.
I observed just such a friend situation earlier today. A few stops after I got on the bus this morning, a lady came running to the bus. The driver waited for her and she jumped on, out of breath but with great appreciation for the driver waiting. "I'm late and I have to give a speech today in class."
Apparently the driver knew her from her regularity on this bus. After some small talk and a few questions the passenger and driver established that she was giving a persuasive speech on why people should loose weight. And so it began.
The passenger had studied her topic and had personal experience at loosing weight. The driver: an expert in all things health related. Each back and forth giving point after point as to what food items will make you fat. How America is making money off of people being fat and therefore does not truly want people to loose weight. How your body can't actually loose fat, only make your current fat cells smaller. On and on they went, not really having a conversation, just joisting back and forth in a seemingly unannounced competition as to who had the most and most correct fat buring info. A lot of talking and no listening. Or should I say, no hearing. Neither person felt or was actually heard. How tragic.
Steven Covey says that being heard is the emotional equivalent to oxygen. We all want to be heard. We all need to be heard. Here was a moment of human interaction where you could clearly see two starving people. Starving to be heard. So hungry that they could not hear another person, giving them what they each so desperately needed. They could only glutten themselves on the feast of their own words hoping someone on the other end would pick up the sound and satisfy their appetite.
I wondered after leaving that bus, how often I do the same thing. How often do I approach another human with my unheard appetite to feast on their ears? How often do I take and take and take time to tell my story without listening to theirs? How often do I put myself ahead of them to satisfy my own needs?
The Bible says, "give and it shall be given unto you." as a minister I teach the principles of reaping and sowing. Maybe I should learn to give "listening" so that it may be given back. Maybe then and only then will I be heard.
Think about it.

See you on the bus,

Travis & Gina Moffitt