Further Than Listening

Tonight I went to a community meeting hosted at a church for civic leaders to discuss their plans for development, transit, roads, and other matters. Public meetings can still start and end in prayer in Jesus' name in Northern Virginia.

Affordable housing is a popular topic in this area. While I have questions about the role people want the government to have in that matter, I still find it valuable to listen to people. One can go further than listening in helping people ask their questions better and explore data that speaks to their argument. In doing that I found I did not just learn about their perspective, but the process helped shed greater light on the wider questions and matters at hand.

Building relationships is valuable inherently and perhaps down the road when there may be opportunity to explore additional sides to questions and issues explored only in part today.