Free This I Believe: Life Lessons by Dan Gediman, Mary Jo Gediman, John Gregory Page A

it’s the cool silence of that stone church that I remember the most. It was heady and gave me life. It was there that I could escape the scrutiny and expectations of being a child of color and the son of a preacher.
    My white father brought his black wife and children to this blue-blooded community in 1968. Our world was changing. My experiences showed me that the attainability of the American Dream conflicted with the reality that my black skin seemed to tell people that I was still a threat, that I was base in the eyes of our free and equal society. I learned to step aside when passing white ladies on the sidewalk even while on my way to the elite private schools I attended.
    In the silence of my father’s church, beneath the sun-illumed stained glass, I could hear my own voice—it told me I was smart and helped me dream a life worth living. Outside the church, the deafening discord of society told me I was a subordinate person and someone to be feared.
    As I got older, the noise of our civilization—television, movies, history, religion—began to dictate the way I thought I ought to live my life. Our cacophonous world not only drowned out my inner voice, it told other people how they should feel about me and those who look like me. I’m sorry they saw me as a monster. If only they could tune out the noise to hear my thoughts, the ones at my core, then they might realize how wrong they were about me. And maybe they would be free to see themselves in a new light as well.
    When I was twenty-five, I found the strength to rediscover my inner voice. It happened at the bedside of my dying father. In the soft quiet of our conversations, he told me to be my own man. He helped me recognize the noise of the world so I could learn to stop listening to it. He encouraged me to see my weaknesses and illuminate my strengths. For the first time since I was a child, I was able to hear the voice of my spirit. It told me what I value and how I ought to live my own life.
    I believe in a silence that allows me to stop paying attention to the world around me and start listening to my heart. In the years since my father’s death, I try daily to hear the silence amid the noise of career, children, war, recession, and success. Most days I find it as I walk with my daughters in the woods behind our home. It’s the church of my adult life. I tell my girls about the grandfather they never knew and the lessons he gave me. I tell them how he saved my life.
    I tell them I believe there is a voice inside all of us that needs to be heard.
    Andrew Flewelling moved to Vermont from Boston in 1997 after the death of his father, leaving behind a career in advertising to search for a quieter world in which to raise a family. Mr. Flewelling lives in the shadow of Mount Mansfield with his wife and two daughters and works for the University of Vermont.

Do Talk to Strangers

    Sabrina Dubik
    I believe that we should talk to strangers. By engaging in unexpected, friendly conversation with strangers, our lives can be affected in ways that are extraordinary. I learned this valuable and life-changing experience during my sophomore year of college. I was a student and part-time waitress in Chicago, and I spent most of my time at work engaging in as little “real” conversation as possible. This was not done intentionally, but rather instinctively. Growing up, I was used to phrases such as, “Don’t talk to strangers” and “Mind your own business.” As a result, I didn’t talk to unknown people at work, beyond taking orders and the occasional weather chat. Similarly, I never struck up a conversation on a three-hour plane flight or knew the name of the woman I rode the train with every day. But the process of keeping to myself ended in a life-changing way.
    One night, a little old man, probably in his eighties, came in and sat in my section. I took his order and went on my way. But I noticed that he came in