The Power of the Missing

Have you ever labored over a 1,000-piece puzzle over a series of days only to find out at the very end that one piece is missing?!  You search the box, the table, the floor.  You retrace your steps.  You question everyone who has been near the puzzle, and you even suspect the practical joker in your family.  No one is allowed to sweep or vacuum the floor for days.

I know this is beginning to sound like a New Testament parable, but I am not going there!

Do you focus on the missing or the whole?
(Photo:  almost completed Kincade Puzzle - Larry Gardepie)

A mixture of emotions passes through you as you eventually reconcile the incompleteness of your creation.  You look at the puzzle... and focus only on the loss... the missing piece!

I wonder how often we spend on Incompleteness and Missing... What Isn't rather than What Is.  Do we even notice the magnificence of the rest of the puzzle?

This may sound like the Cup-Half-Empty or the Cup-Half-Full, but I am not going there either!

What happens when we don't see everything... or everyone?
(Photo:  Tulips outside Empress Hotel,
Victoria, B.C. - Larry Gardepie)

Sadly, it seems that we sometimes need to miss something in order to treasure it:  like a family member who is no longer present or has moved away; a relationship that ended; or a question that hasn't been asked.  Sometimes the missing or incompleteness helps us to refocus on what is important.

Does this sound like Reconciliation and Forgiveness?  Maybe... but I am not going there either... entirely!

Who would you like sitting next to you?
(Photo:  Tulips and Empty Bench, Victoria, B.C. - Larry Gardepie)

Life's Journey invites us to Notice:  Creation, relationships, accomplishments... and our limitations.  As humans, none of us are perfect!  We are incomplete.  Our understanding is just one piece of a much larger puzzle.

Therefore, it is important that we reconcile that we cannot do everything. And we must search for the missing and understand when we are half... not whole.  In other words, we need one another... and everyone must be included.

The real puzzle is:  How?  Maybe we start with:

• Who do you miss?
• Who would you like sitting next to you?
• What questions would you ask?
• What do you want to learn?

Larry Gardepie

Dialogue San Diego Consulting

(click on link for website)

What Am I Missing?

Have you ever taken a message for someone else - whether from a phone call or someone wanting to pass along information through you to another person?  Sometimes I have taken down what I heard word-for-word.  Sometimes I ask questions to understand the message.  In many situations, I might not understand the message because I don't have the understanding or context of what the person wants to pass along.

Invariably, the person receiving the message asks questions:

• Did she say anything else?
• What did he mean by...?
• Am I supposed to do something about...?
  

As the messenger, we are often caught short.  Sometimes I find myself cycling through Should Have's:

• I should have asked what the message meant.
• I should have written more in the message.
• I should have remembered to...

Passing along information to another person is not always simple!

What do you hear?
~ Click on image to enlarge ~
(Photo credit:  Pickles, by Brian Crane, June 13, 2021)

I wonder about the different roles that we play: as the person with the message; the messenger; and the person receiving the message.  Each person impacts the situation.

Why this reflection on message, messenger, roles, and impact?  I blame it on the book my dialogue reading group is currently reviewing:  Dialogue - The Art of Listening Together by William Isaacs.  He distinguishes between thought and thinking, felt and feeling.

In order to listen together, we must separate the inner spiral that intertwines memories (past thoughts and feelings) with listening and responding in the present:

• What is happening now?
• What am I hearing now?
• How am I feeling now?
  
  

What swirls in your mind when you  listen to others?
(Photo: Point Loma Lighthouse, San Diego)

This separation of past memories with current reality allows us to move from reacting to responding.  The reflexive actions generated by our memories are released so that we can be inspired by what actions need to occur now.

Isaacs mentioned that the ascendancy of science over arts, ethics, and philosophy created an imbalance in the human experience.  Proof overrode interconnectedness; facts overshadowed faith.

What happens when science is no longer trusted, though, as we are experiencing now in our Pandemic of Distrust?  Without balance we begin to spiral downward:  individual beliefs outweighing collective wisdom; My Way refusing to acknowledge other possibilities.

Can you see beyond your blinders?

(Photo: La Casa de Estudillo, Old Town San Diego)

In a different discussion this past week, Jayne, a member of a dialogue mentoring learning group, suggested that we must:

"Listen with the ear of the heart."

This imagery invites me to consider opening my heart to what I am seeing, hearing, and experiencing.  As I take a message for someone else or convey a thought to another person:

• Am I willing to hear with the heart;
• Listen beyond the words; and,
  
• Seek understanding?

 

What messages do you hear from your heart?

 

May we move beyond past memories; may we respond to present needs; and may we listen together.

Larry Gardepie

Dialogue San Diego Consulting

(click on link for website)

Missing Perspectives

Sitting in the atrium of a local hotel this past week, I was watching the various guests and their families.  Some wore masks and continued to practice social distancing, but the vast majority were not.  Life had returned to normal -- whatever that definition meant for each family.  Elevators were full; lines were formed; people jostled to be first or to get what was perceived as theirs.  After going through 15 months of caution, safety in isolation, and being careful, I wondered if we had seen or shared the same reality.

Watching the hotel elevators rise and fall in their designated shafts, I also wondered if our thinking is as siloed as these elevators:  rising and falling with only our own cargo of thoughts and lived experiences.

What do you miss when siloed in your thinking?

I continued to reflect on this line of thought as we ventured out into the San Diego Zoo.  California had just fully reopened one week earlier, yet the zoo was full:  tourists from all over the country had returned to San Diego.  Are we any safer than before while many people remain unvaccinated?  How is it that the virus can mutate and have variants yet we as humans don't allow variations in our own thinking?  What is normal about our every day lives when we can no longer see another perspective?

Standing outside the giraffe enclosure, I wondered: even with their long necks, giraffes can only see as far as their eyesight allows and the direction they face.  What are we seeing?  Which singular direction are we facing?  How can we possibly expect to see another perspective unless we improve our eyesight... change our position... or rely on others?

Is there only one perspective to be seen?

We ended our stay at the zoo with the flamingos, located at the beginning or front of the zoo.  There was noise and commotion, birds vying for attention or sitting peacefully on nests.  Maybe life is like this:  messy... noisy... varied... confusing.  Is that the normal we are returning to?  Or is normal a false security of siloed thinking?

Rather than staying in our single-shafted visions of normalcy that rise and fall with our cargo of thoughts, maybe we are encouraged to explore new Ways of Being.

How do we nurture new life?

Questions to consider this week:

• What did I learn from the months of COVID-separation?
• Are there variations of thoughts that scare me?
• Can I seek a normal that allows shared experiences AND different perspectives to coexist?

May we mourn the missing perspectives we don't see.

Larry Gardepie

Dialogue San Diego Consulting

(click on link for website)

Missing Pieces, Missing Memories

COVID projects!  I am sure you've had your share of them this past year: cleaning out closets, garages, and storage units; unending "Spring Cleaning"; reorganizing and simplifying.  Going through picture albums and deciding which photos to scan in and which ones to discard is one of my ongoing projects.  It's amazing how many people or trips I no longer remember details... names, how we met, why that travel shot was so important at the time.

I have access to or kept cards and photos that were unique and have shaped who I am.

What has shaped you?

The interesting thing about cleaning out and simplifying are the Emotions of Remembrance: who we were; what influenced us; how we lived... in another time and place.  What shall I let go?  What shall I carry on?

It seems that as I remember, I also notice how much I don't remember.  There are missing pieces in my Life Story:

• Was I too young to know the significance of what was being said?
• Did I not have a context to understand?
• Why didn't I ask questions?

Missing pieces.  Missing memories.

What is missing in your life?

As I stumble through my dialogue practice, I am reminded over and over again how critical it is to develop and nurture Curiosity, the desire to learn and know about anything.  The skill of being inquisitive.

 

My grandparents and parents have passed from this life.  The stories that made them unique can no longer be told in their own voices -- what they experienced and understood to be true.  Fortunately, I still have brothers and sisters.  I am sure each has their own memories of Grandpa, Grandma, Mom, and Dad... from their own perspectives.  I must remember that each of their experiences is individual, rare, and true.

When is it time to listen?
(Photo Credit:  The Simple Guide to Caring
for Elderly People, Huffpost)

I am thankful for memories as I decide what to digitize, what to remember, and what to let go.  I now realize how important it is to pay attention to those around me.  Can I ask -- and pay attention -- to the stories that have shaped other people's Ways of Being in this world?

 

Maybe one lesson for our divided world is how we might want to come together -- with a desire to listen, ask questions, and hope to understand what missing pieces another person holds.  Only when we share these lessons can we put together who we were, who we are, and who we want to become.

As we feel the loss of missing memories, may we reach out to others and practice ways to become curious.  May we seek to hear and remember.

 

Larry Gardepie

Dialogue San Diego Consulting

(click on link for website)