Do You Know Me?

Have you ever noticed how you can live with someone for a long time and still not really KNOW them? But it isn't proximity that teaches you about people, it's connectivity. I read somewhere that people have four basic needs: to be trusted, loved, appreciated, and understood. How can that happen unless you know them?
I lived with my brothers and sisters for about twenty years. We ate, worked, played and lived together in every circumstance. Years and experience have taught us much about each other. However, there are times when I wonder if they will ever really understood ME. We all know that people are dual beings. They have the outward person; what people expect of them; appearance, habits etc. Then they have the inner person; the thoughts known only to them; the motives, desires and dreams. There are many people with whom we share the outward person. Acquaintances, friends, neighbors, and strangers alike can be familiar enough with us that they might even say that they KNOW us. But I am convinced that only a few people in this world were ever truly known and understood by their fellow beings.
When I was twelve years old I had a band director who motivated me to be the best I could be in my music. His dynamic personality, love of music, and friendship with the students made his band program the best in the state. For two years, as his student, I worked harder at my music than I had worked at anything else in my life. My older siblings had spent five and six years under his tutelage and had accomplished great things. I looked forward with great anticipation to the time when I would be a part of his high school band program. The administration of the school, however, felt very differently about our teacher. They saw him as a threat to the discipline of the school and they feared the student's admiration for him. Because of that fear they decided to fire him. The students were in shock when they found out, but there was little they could do. Pickets, petitions and pleadings were all in vain. Mr. Sheets left the school at the end of that year, never to return. That summer, he died of blood poisoning after a painting accident. The students were stunned and horrified at his death, and the whole town was deeply troubled by the whole incident.
Those administrators couldn't understand all the good in that man's heart. The students couldn't understand the administrators' animosity toward their favorite teacher. I didn't understand why I would have to be deprived of a great teacher, and no one understood why I wanted to be a band director when I grew up. Everyone's life is made up of countless layers of experience. Tragedy, triumph, heartache, joy, trouble and peace attend us by turns as the layers of our lives are forged. Misunderstanding is like a thorn that works its way into the layers of our lives causing untold suffering, until the festering, burning wound is opened and the thorn is removed. Ignorance is the hammer that drives the thorn of misunderstanding into a human heart. Understanding is the hand that removes the thorn and allows the wound to heal.
In order to trust, love, appreciate and understand another human being, you have to know them. In order to know them you have to listen to them. Listen not only with your ears, but with your eyes, your mind and your heart. When people speak, look at them, in the eye, and see and understand not just what they are saying, but what they are NOT saying. See them for who they are trying to be, who they want to be, who they must be, and who they are. Then, when you understand, ignorance is banished, thorns are removed, lives are healed and pain is gone.