Learning to Listen

You have two voices with which you speak: your Mindvoice and your Soulvoice. 

These two voices are also – all the time – speaking to you.   

Which voice you listen to will determine which voice you speak with. 

God invites you to listen to, and speak with, your Soulvoice.

This will vastly improve your personal communications – to say nothing of your mood.

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Last week, I had the incredible privilege of driving for 8 hours with a close friend, a recovering alcoholic.  She told me about going on a women's retreat in California; the purpose of the retreat was to get in touch with the inner world that determines who we are and what drives our actions in the outer world.  The first or second day of the retreat, they were asked to maintain absolute silence for 24 hours.  That night, or the next morning, my friend dreamed that a number of dragons were coming at her from different directions, threatening to overwhelm and destroy her.  I have forgotten some of the details of the dream that she related, but what I do remember was that instead of killing the dragons, she was able to transform them into friends, there to protect and guide her instead of killing her.  She grew to love that which had terrorized her for so long. 

 

My friend is convinced that without the imposed silence, she would never have come to this dream and the revelation it contained for her.  The next morning, she and the other women were able to reveal and discuss with one another what had happened to them after a period of silence.

 

The word "educate" comes from the Latin "educare," which means "to draw out."  Most of us think of education in general, and religious education in particular, as "telling," but actually a good education should give us the tools with which to listen to and balance our inner worlds with the outer world.

 

Our mind-voice is always busy; in fact, one of the things I learned while studying language acquisition is that it is impossible to shut off the language center of the brain.  We think; we rehearse our words; we review our emotions and the reasons behind them; we solidify the patterns of resentment, anger, bitterness, jealousy, and ego that carve deep ruts in the brain, changing us physically, and not only psychologically.  If we are to begin to listen to our soul-voice, the one connected to the Spirit of God, we must find a way to still and to silence the mind-voice.

 

It is easy to recognize the soul-voice within us; it is the voice of peace, love, hope, humility, kindness, empathy, and truth.  It is the "small still voice of God" speaking in our innermost being.  If we are to coax the invisible world within us to the visible world without, we must find ways to nourish the soul voice -- to give it the space and the silence it needs to begin to speak.  We can actually train our spirits to hear both the Voice of God within us and what the Spirit is speaking to us.

 

If we are addicted to the external world and to the constant chatter of our mind-voice, we will never hear the soul voice speaking to us, but we will be haunted by what it is trying to reveal.  We will become hungry with a hunger that nothing in the outer world can satisfy -- no food, no friend, no adventure.  We hunger for the world of the Spirit.

 

Jesus promised us "living water" so that we would never thirst again --- the water He gives us "springing up to eternal life" is His very own communion with the Father and with the Spirit, a conversation born in friendship, compassion, and total acceptance of who we are, with all our quirks, sins, hang-ups, and inhibitions. 

 

Friends long to communicate with one another, to reveal to each other the inner world of their souls, the unique landscape that belong to them alone.  God longs to approach us as Friend, as Counselor, and Teacher and Guide.  He longs to reveal to each one of us His own "inner landscape," and He longs to embrace who we are in the depths of our being.  None of this can happen until we can embrace the silence and solitude that allows our souls to emerge and to speak. 

 

There are many ways to strengthen the voice within, the voice that reveals a world so beautiful we cannot imagine it.  In the next few days, I will explore some of the ways we can "be still and know that I am God."