The process of documenting one’s own community begins very simply: have three conversations. Let them be conscious conversations, let the ear and the heart go where the judgment function cannot follow. Don Wallis calls this deep listening, and I think it a perfect term.

Give the other person space to unfold their story, and listen with intent. Christina Baldwin, author of Storycatcher, writes that a person’s story is not what happened to them, but what they made of it. Ordinary conversation gives us the opportunity to exemplify who we are, what we are about- what principles guide our thinking. In the telling of story, the mundane becomes meaningful.

This simple exercise can be very informal (read: natural and spontaneous), but may have the greatest effect if practiced when encountering a stranger. I have seen the most wonderful conversations happening in grocery stores and parking lots between total strangers in regards to the recent windstorms and the havoc they wreaked in the area. It seems that the conversations themselves really center on the effect of being “unplugged” for days on one’s life, and more often than not the recounts of this experience have been optimistic and rewarding.

I have to wonder if the sheer excitement of the storm is really what spurs our openness to truly encounter a stranger when, just days before, we might have barely made eye-contact. I wonder if we listen because we find the stories of damage so interesting, or if we could have been a little shaken from our virtual version of reality, enough to sense that the average people around us might be all we can count on to exist.

Surely, if we can assign some deeper meaning to the people passing through our daily lives, then listening- deep listening- becomes rather natural. It is this kind of thinking that prepares one to encounter other people’s stories.