(This is part of an ongoing series of highlights from past Listen to Life newsletters.  Many readers and subscribers were not following when this came out.  Enjoy.)

The noise level carries with it the sounds of conversations, whispers, crying babies and the clanking of dishes.  As I sit in the booth at Denny’s, I hear life and am thankful for the sounds more than distracted by them.  Just as electromagnetic waves can carry various layers of information, the sound waves bring with them many levels of understanding and insights.  To tune out the drone is to tune out life.

At least three distinct languages carry conversations between couples or within families, while each are enjoying their meals at the quintessential diner with the yellow hexagonal sign bearing red letters.  This is our America and our lives—inexpensive food enjoyed by minimum wage earners and six-figure salaried managers during interactions in a multitude of languages on a variety of topics, all of which we are free to talk about.  On this morning, the conversations range from church (this is a Sunday, and there are at least a dozen churches of different denominations within five minutes of my booth), to relationships (the eccentric, older redhead advising the well-coiffed blond young woman) to how to eat pancakes (I assume this by the actions of the young mother as she speaks in Russian to her child while cutting the pancakes and then turning the utensils over to her child).

This is why we are blessed to wake up in the morning—living.  The noise of living—the reciprocal necessary for balance to the deadly silence, real or created, that we find ourselves in—serves to remind us of the energy of life.  And of the interactions within it.

While much can be learned by listening to specific words or conversations, there resides an important lesson in apparently confusing blends of conversations and activity.  Listen. The noise says you are live.  Join the noise.