Gifts from Memphis!

As I prepare for the Southwest UU Conference Spring Meeting, during this weekend, I have also had a little time to venture out from my hotel room and greet Memphis.  It’s a city I’ve never been to, before.

Before I ever lived in a city, I always thought of them as abstract things.  Just sprawling gatherings of people and commerce, all piled up on each other.

But since I’ve had the opportunity to live an urban life, from within cities, I have come to know that they have their own character and energy, like any organism does.  So when I get an opportunity to visit a new city, I am always looking for something deeper than the tourist attractions, or the obvious high points.  I’m listening for a rhythm.

Tonight, I found some other travelers.  They were unexpected.  Darlene and Wes, both in their eighties, were my companions at a table at the rooftop party I decided to crash (since I could get in free, and the view was amazing).  While 20- and 30- somethings stood in line for drink tickets, and eyed each other, Darlene and Wes got up and danced swing variations to Pat Benetar and other 80’s standards.  When i asked them if they often attend parties like this back home, they replied, “Oh, yes!”  When I engaged them in conversation and asked how long they’d been married, I was put in my place when Darlene replied that they were traveling in order to celebrate their 25th anniversary of un-marriage.  They don’t live together, either.  All the things I had constructed in my head turned out to be false.

I had gone out from my hotel room hoping to meet some people I hadn’t known before, as a stranger in a new place.  What I found was a far greater gift—I was confronted with my own assumptions about “a certain age” and then I had them overturned.

I am deeply grateful for the reminder–Just ask the questions…and then listen.  Listen without judgment, without assumption, and *with* humility.  Gifts are waiting, everywhere.