Ear and Heart Health

Before her death, I quoted Ann Landers a great deal. She was, and remains, a seer who had a clear understanding of the human condition. She was always on the cusp of things. She was alert to her readers' needs and sensitivities. How I wish I could be a male Ann Landers!

Her columns were always in response. She opened the doors to her readers to march in with their concerns and comments and even agonies. She never put anyone down. She knew that all of us have warts and vulnerabilities and aches and hurts and needs. And, she knew that each of us needs someone who will listen. Erma Bombeck was like that. She was able to address with humor, but also with incredible wisdom.

We need an Ann or an Erma today. We need someone who sees through all the folly of our times. We need someone who doesn't need to take advantage of our struggles and heartaches and pain. We need someone who doesn't go on television to sell us something or offer an invitation to send them money so we may be healed or promised outlandish results from our investment in a postage stamp. We need authentic, caring, enormously sensitive human beings who have walked the road, stumbled over the stones, and survived.

I think there are people like that out there. I think they are persons who don't look for large audiences or depend on Nielsen ratings. I think they are the supermen and wonder women of our times who know how to lift us up and out. I think they aren't influenced by their advertisers or their public relations staff. They are deeply, genuinely concerned about what it takes to make it from day to day.

Find your someone who will listen. And then offer to someone else your own ear and heart!