Isaiah stood before the altar and, in his vision, saw seraphim surrounding. He heard the quiet voice calling his name and said, "Depart from me, for I am a man of unclean lips." The answer he received was a cleansing, his conversion experience; and his response was, "Here am I. Send me." Simon rowed out into the deep water at the request of Christ Jesus. after fishing all night and catching nothing. With boats nearly sinking and nets breaking, he and the brothers, James and John rowed back into shore where the Christ spoke, saying they would now catch men and women, rather than fish. Matthew was a despised, although financially comfortable tax collector who repaid all his ill-gotten gains and left a lucrative profession to answer that gentle request, "Follow me."
Francis, the wealthy young man in twelfth century Assisi shed his clothes and laid aside all the signs of his social standing to become one with the beggars and outcasts. "Make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow your love..." His friend Clare left her comfortable home to begin the feminine response to Francis as the mendicant, contemplative Poor Clares. Mother Teresa of Calcutta left her family in Albania to be a teaching nun in India where her life was comfortable as she worked with the daughters of wealthy Calcutta businessmen of the upper castes. She forsook that life to touch the lepers, the unclean, the unwashed, the unwanted and to love them unconditionally as they made transition from the ugliness of their sad lives on the streets where no one cared to a place where they could die in peace and dignity, in the arms of someone who loved them with the pure love of God.
Today the bush still burns where Moses stood before Yaweh, hiding his face because he believed he was not worthy to look on the face of the One who created him. Elijah is still among us, coming out of the caves of commerce and industry as the realization dawns, revealing God is not in the thunder of manufacturing environments, or the earthquake world of the stock market, or the windstorm of sales. God still speaks in the silence of our hearts when the tears flow in the night where no one sees or hears our cries of anguish for purpose and direction. Great Spirit still beckons beyond the material, corrupt, hating society in which we live to stand on the holy ground of God's presence and to speak of the love and forgiveness so generously available to all of us for the taking.
Our loving God whispers to each of us to be mitsvot, blessing or instruments who do the holy work, melodious tools in the hands of a master musician, vibrating with the power known only as Love. We are all meant to be whole, fully alive as the glorious creation of a marvelously munificent God, moving towards holiness together and aware always of the presence of Creator Spirit stirring our hearts and drawing us continually closer. In this glorious insanity of unconditional love who is God we are free to choose a positive response of love and commitment, free to reject the God of the unexpected opportunities, free to renounce God's unstinting, nonjudgmental forgiveness, free to run home as the prodigal son where each of us is welcome and celebrated as beloved.
Very few of us hear that whisper when first it insinuates its quiet tug into the depths of our hearts. Often we mistakes its beckoning for idle dreams or, even worse, ridiculous urges to engage in rather strange activities. Often we do not realize how the longing to achieve the dream we bury and never disclose is the symphony the orchestra of our lives will bless to generations who follow if we but have the courage to lift the violin and the bow, put lips to the mouthpiece of the euphonium or barely touch the waiting strings of the harp. We lay aside the ambitions we house in distant fairy-tale castles as being too insubstantial, too impractical, little understanding how, if we were to have the daring to build foundations under those misty wishes, we would begin erecting a monument of human magnificence bespeaking the glory of Creator Spirit's faith in us.
It seems to me one of our more persistent difficulties in heeding the calls in the depths of our spirits, preventing us from what we most achingly long to accomplish, is a certain fear, a lack of courage and faith in ourselves. There is an undeniable element of the unknown, the unexpected we cannot seek to control. There is risk in letting go of what we already have within our grasp to reach for our dreams, our often inarticulate hopes. We paddle our tiny row boats near the shore, fearful of the wide, uncharted seas beyond the breakers, unaware of the possibility of adventure and opportunities to discover new oceans and new worlds if we sail away from the coast we know into a world we do not know at all. Few of us grow towards responsible adulthood with the steady encouragement to risk, to dream, to attempt the unknown; most of us discover, rather, conformity and safety are more comfortable choices with somewhat more predictable results. However, it is the implicit desire continuing to call our names in our dreams, awaking us in the night to wonder why it is we do not sleep.
From where does that inaudible whisper emanate? Who is it calling from the burning bushes we encounter in the unexpected opportunities of daily moments? How do we discriminate the loving call from the insidious, dangerous beckoning of a lesser self? Then, when the whisper sings so sweetly, drawing us closer to the fire, do we go in faith or do we stand back to assess? Is it prudence, wisdom or simply fear provoking response, or none at all? Even more urgently, what is that whisper counseling radical shift in focus, even to the understanding of one's very purpose for living at all?
Each of us hears in the hidden rooms of our inner selves that peaceful melody inviting us home; yet, few of us understand the invitation. Even when we recognize and welcome the loving, open-armed encouragement to explore the radiant beauty of that one we are created to be, we often turn from the warmth and the light. It is too simple, and it asks nothing more than complete honesty within our own souls. The unspoken desires of our hearts go unfulfilled because we do not realize our longing to be home with ourselves and with the loving God who creates us, the most profoundly simple yearning we all share, is, in its utter simplicity, the most complex challenge we will ever face. This is so because we convolute its simplicity into a labyrinth of confusion.
It is difficult, at best, to clarify how any of us can adequately discern the validity of our individual whispers in the night, although, for some people the choices are clear always and the path easy to follow. These of those fortunate souls who know what they want to do and go about doing it the rest of their lives with purpose and dedication. Perhaps, during the dark nights we all experience at some moment of our lives, these people question their lives, their accomplishments; perhaps, some do not. I can speak for none of them. There are others of us who are called constantly to adjust, to adapt, to be present in innumerable places in order to make appropriate use of the talents and abilities inborn and yet to be developed.
The clarion ring of our souls' music expressing perfect pitch and the simplest harmony of greatest beauty is the work revealing most honestly who we are. We are happiest when we are accomplishing what we most like to do. It is not a novel concept expressing how we work best at what we love. Hearing this whisper is effortless and heeding it even less so. It is amazing, however, how we mistake such simplicity as being too elementary. Why is it we must make our lives so complex and difficult? Why do we search for profundity when all we require is integrity of soul? Must we constantly seek to prove to ourselves and to those with whom we interact the strange attitude that suggests complexity breeds value? All it produces, unfortunately for so many of us, is confusion and loss of clarity.
The whisper in the night is one beckoning to us to discover the magnificence of our beings as Creator Spirit designed, to be that wonderful person who is born from the joy of love. Repeatedly, the traditional hymn of creation from the first chapter of Genesis attests God saw each act of creation as good, as something to be enjoyed, in which to find delight. Our whispers ask us to take joy in being beloved children, to join in the creative love bringing blessing to the world through which we walk. The Psalmist wrote we are fearfully and wonderfully made; Isaiah's glorious prophecy speaks God's matchless love for us because we are precious in God's sight and we are loved. These whispers are shouts of joy. How can we not hear them and respond with resounding agreement to knowing we are called most of all to joy?
The whisper in the night is a song of love inviting intimacy and
lasting relationship with the One who knows us best and loves us beyond
our dreams. This is not a demand to be less than who we are but an invitation
to become fully that glorious creation of a loving God. It is a quiet understanding
of our acceptability, even our desirability and lovableness to the One
who knows our secret places and awaits our coming home, shining a a beacon into the darkness where
we try to hide from the light of pure love. The call on the wind through
the night hours is one bidding us realize home is where our souls are free;
our lives are meant to be lived in joy, fully expressing all the beauty
created in us. The only adequate response to the whisper is a sigh of relief
as we turn towards those open arms and allow ourselves to accept the freedom
of living as one beloved and fully alive.
