Our Greatest Gift

Mister Rogers:

"More and more I've come to understand that listening is one of the most important things we can do for one another. 

Whether the other be an adult or a child, our engagement in listening to who that person is can often be our greatest gift. Whether that person is speaking or playing or dancing, building or singing or painting, if we care, we can listen.

In times of stress, the best thing we can do for each other is to listen with our ears and our hearts and to be assured that our questions are just as important as our answers.

Listening is a very active awareness of the coming together of at least two lives. Listening, as far as I'm concerned, is certainly a prerequisite of love. One of the most essential ways of saying, "I love you" is being a receptive listener.

Listening is where love begins: listening to ourselves and then to our neighbors.

(And) when we love a person, we accept him or her exactly as is: the lovely with the unlovely, the strong along with the fearful, the true mixed in with the facade, and of course, the only way to do it is by accepting ourselves that way."

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