Nuances & layers

Driving is thinking time for me. A lot of people ask why I work where I do when we live where we do as it requires at least two hours of driving a day. I actually like driving as it provides time to reflect, pray, listen to the radio, podcasts, enjoy music, keep up to date with news (as I don't have time for TV) etc.Yesterday I spent at least five hours driving. For work I often visit sites to provide support, mentoring, consultancy & education. It was on a long drive yesterday listening to 612ABC that I heard these two words - nuances & layers. 

They grabbed me. I love words. The sounds, the meanings, the combinations, wordsmithing and writing. No surprises there. Sunshine loves words too. We both share a love of reading and the library. One of her favourite words is, bread! She explains why she loves this word, the sound of it, the smell of  it, the image it creates. Cute. Funny how the mention of a simple word can conjure up so much, even incite the senses. Sunshine immediately imagines the smell of bread wafting through our house when the bread maker is on and imagines the loaf of freshly baked bread being popped out onto the wire rack for cooling. All this by uttering the word, bread. 

So nuances & layers in reference too? In reference to who we are as people. The commentator had just finished interviewing someone who had written an essay on our very own federal opposition leader. They had for an hour analysed his personality, his family life, his university life, his political life, from every angle possible. It did strike me that one could be so sure of someone with so little contact with them! An hour interview with reading and research. Can you really sum someone up after an hour interview and watching their performance from a distance?

After the interview the commentator made this beautiful reference to nuances & layers which I wholeheartedly agree with. As unique individuals, we are so much more than the labels people use to describe us of; black vs white, NLP vs labour, religious vs agnostic, catholic vs evangelical, conservative vs liberal, narrow minded vs broad minded, gay vs straight, political vs apolitical, democratic vs republican. We love to pigeon hole people. We are complex beings and I guess it's an attempt to simply.

Rather consider people as individuals with unique colourful nuances and multiple layers that deserve getting to know. Of accepting people as beautiful tapestries with interwoven tones of a bit of this and a bit of that. It's a reminder to not be quick to judge another. First impressions can be right, but more often are not. We can and do make assessments about people all the time, yet to be mindful that we often see people only in one small context of life i.e. at work, as presented in the media, playing sport etc. The sum total of who we are is so much more than that.

Cherishing the nuances & layers of each of my children and others today.