The Still Small Voice

Silence has become so deafening. In this culture, so saturated with advertisements, sound bites, palm-sized entertainment, and instant movies, temptation to ignore our need for silence is dangerously disguised. Masquerading as necessities, these things of modern life have amalgamated into an obsession of sorts. Their collective noise has become so much a part of the mundane, we don't know what to do with ourselves in silence.

Silence has an uncomfortable ringing to it, like that of a cell phone in a funeral. It doesn't seem to fit. When we are honest, we avoid silence because, it puts us face to face with our own ideas, our own voice, our own true self. So, we arrange church services to minimize it. We fire television producers who allow it to happen. We talk awkwardly and often unnecessarily rather than exchange a silent moment with a stranger next to us. Silence is uncomfortable. Therefore, if uncomfortable is bad then silence must be bad. This sort of if A is B and B is C then A must be C mentality is slowly robbing us of spiritual sensitivity.

God lives in the silence because that is where the still small voice can be heard most clearly, most purely, most prudently. The amount of noise that bombards us each day if we do not carefully and thoughtfully filter it is catastrophic. Noise of this frequency ravages our minds capacity to clarify priority, think critically, and investigate intuitively by finessing its way into even the nooks and crannies of our day-to-day living. It is to our mental and spiritual capacity as devastating as a strong wind, as shattering as an earthquake.

24-hour news. Billboards. Text messages. Phone ringing. Critical care monitor alarms. Television. Radio. The murmuring of any city. The running self-critical commentary in my head, affectionately called the "Itty Bitty Shitty Committee." Societal expectations. Familial expectations. All these things invade my space before breakfast. Some are important. Without the critical care alarms, a person entrusted into my care may die. I understand that noise. It's meaningful, like the cry of an infant whose breathed first breath. Some are neutral and unavoidable. The sounds of passers-by and car horns are part of my living landscape. Some are both avoidable and potentially damaging in the way that they take my eyes off the prize. The noise given off by television, radio, news, billboards, text messaging, the IBSC, and anyone's expectations of me but God form a toxic brew that if drank is the root of all kinds of evil. And, the lie we believe is that we have little control over the situation. We must be honest about our responsibility in this bombardment; we invite most of this noise because it drowns out any need to deal with the real, eternal issues of life.

Our lust for urgency has created animosity toward silence. And, this makes since. Silence requires time. Silence requires patience. Silence requires stillness, bravery, and initiative because it puts us ear to mouth with the voice that matters: God. Not only does it require us to listen in a culture that can barely hear, it often exposes those parts of ourselves toward which we are the most critical and uncomfortable. Living in a culture of pandaemonium confuses the mind into believing in "I'm okay" That, silence refuses to allow. Silence is like the friend who knows saying what needs to be heard is more important than the anger provoked by its exposure.

Discipleship requires honesty, occasionally that honesty must be brutal. The fruit born through silence is of such paramount importance that we must be brutally honest about its reality. Silence is not an escape from life's problems, it is the solution to them. It forces us into ourselves, into our minds, into the depths of our soul where the Holy Spirit resides within us. To not confront ourselves in the silence is to refuse not only our own humanity but the Creative nature of God. God bequeathed us the ability to analyze, plan, and create change in ourselves so that we may create change in the world. Choosing a life filled with mindless chatter must be like spiting in God's face when placed in comparison to all that has been given to us. And, the grip of grace is so much greater than our cultural mindlessness.

For my own spiritual survival, I must return to the place where temporary discomfort leads to lifelong spiritual gains. I have so much to learn from God about myself, about God's gifts within me, about how I fit into God's greater calling to humanity. Silence is the place where God says, meet me anytime. And, yet I am more afraid of that place than within the cacophony of our culture that is the sum total nothing important. I am more comfortable without than with my Creator. And, that is incredibly disappointing to me. This life is no dress rehearsal. If I am uncomfortable being with God now, how is an eternity with God heaven? Silence is compulsory discipleship activity. In knowing God and hearing the voice of God, we know ourselves. After all, without the breath of God, were were just lumps of clay lying cold on a shore. And, through Christ, the breath of God was restored to humanity. Nothing from the current cultural clatter will bring me closer to God until I have learned discernment from the silence.

I must be still and know. I must hear the still small voice that is only heard within a burning passion, only exposed after the mighty wind and earthquake have ended. I am choosing to end them today. The voice of God must be more present in my life. And, at this point more present is anything more than absent. I accept God's invitation to commune in the silence this day. Will you accept that invitation with me? I am committing to 30 minutes of silence each morning. Four mornings a week the silence will be while walking. Three mornings a week, the silence will be alone and still.

Grace and peace to you as we learn anew the Shepherd's voice; let me know about the table prepared before you in the silence.

Simple Beginnings

Friends, welcome to my blog. This is an exercise in the discipline of both writing and contemplation. I have entitled the blog "that they might be with him..." as an allusion to the appointing of the Apostles in the second Gospel (i.e. Mark).

And he appointed twelve, whom he also named apostles, to be with him...(Mark 3.12a, NRSV)

This one statement, so eloquently and briefly tucked into the pericope, is easy to miss in the author's lightning-paced literary style--especially given the sexiness of the surrounding stories: healing the masses, casting out daemons, and of course the best part...the Easter egg hunt at the end of the Gospel. Jesus' thirty-three years are boiled down to a short story and somehow we think there are "important" parts. This seems about as ludicrous as searching for important parts of the Cliff's Notes on War and Peace! Where did the church derail in not savoring each and every word of the Gospels as precious information, not only about the life of Jesus, but our story.

Perhaps most of the mainstream Christian churches with "a voice" in this world (or at least within the political landscape of this country) have found it so much a part of the Markan literary landscape that they have never thought to take pause over this basic call of Christ. But, perhaps not taking pause in this sound-bite culture is the root of all evil. The problem in skimming over this seemingly innocuous little phrase lies in the profundity of its plain-clothed calling; out of this calling all things Christian stem, grow, blossom, and thrive. We change implicitly when we spend vast amounts of time with anyone. With anything else, all things Christian become as malicious as the Crusades, Westboro Baptist Church, and the Holocaust. For, how can someone be with Jesus and not be changed? Perhaps we have been spending time with an illusory Jesus who live only in the minds of those that want Jesus on their terms.

It has been said that our character is the sum total of the five closest people in our lives. What if Jesus were one of them? I am not suggesting to get all Jesus Freak on people. But what if this kind of gospel brought us to a more complete humanity over time. Is it not good news that God extends his hand to us and asks us for a walk in the right direction? What if the changes were subtle but profound? Would people around us be inspired? What if the Christ-story moved through us like oxygen, animating us from the very fibers of our being? What if Christianity was not about a laundry list of things that "CHRISTIANS DON'T DO! AMEN!"? What if it was not about all the things we are not? But, what if it was about all the things we are: child of God, created-in-God's-image, disciple, friend of God, a little less than the angels, and the list goes on.

I like that list. That list means something. That list is essential in its quality. In other words, it brands the church, the Christian, by what we are. For too long, we have been courted by the non-essentialist philosophy that tells us that a Christian is a Christian because they are not: pro-choice, gay, and well, that is just about all it boils down to these days. What a pitiful faith that is. And suddenly Paul's introduction to Romans makes sense: "Since they didn't bother to acknowledge God, God quit bothering them and let them run loose. And then all hell broke loose: rampant evil, grabbing and grasping, vicious backstabbing. They made life hell on earth with their envy, wanton killing, bickering, and cheating" (Romans 1.28-29a, The Message). Paul meant to be talking about the "world" but this unfortunately seems to be a poignant picture of the American Church landscape.

The Christ-story is the literary, theological, political, and artistic landscape upon which Western Civilization has been built for nearly 2000 years now. To think that the Christ-story, regardless of how raped by human understanding, does not bleed into each and every one of our stories is both ignorant and dangerous. How different would the church be if we had made this "be with Jesus" concept the focus of discipleship? How different would I be? How different would history and the world's perception of the Church and Jesus be? These are tough questions with even tougher and less attainable answers. Of some comfort is the concept that the past is the past. As Paul puts it, "now is the day of salvation." Our search for the sexy things of faith has created enough discord to fill the annuls of any library...this is already reality, pick up any book on the history of Western Civilization.

The phrase "to be with him" might not be dressed up in its Sunday-best, but it is of paramount importance not to frisk the Gospels for the "good stuff." This is the good stuff! God, incarnate, extending his reach to us, asking us in all we do wherever we are to focus on the simple task of being with God. We must not be fooled, though the calling to be "with God" is simple, it is far from easy. Grace would not be necessary if this "with God" life was easy. It has always dumbfounded me how far I often am from the initial call of Christ upon entering into a covenant relationship with him, but it has dumbfounded me further the extent of God's grace and love.

With respect to those characteristics of God, this blog will be an attempt of groping in the dark for a sort of Christianity that animates the mundane. I want to know what a life "with Jesus" is. I have spent too long focusing on what it is not. And, consequentially, I have lost sight of the essence of God. We are more than our bodies, our minds, our current situation. We are formed in the image of God by the hands of God for the glory of God. And, that is an amazing thing. Only after the creation of humans did God put "very" in front of good when he commented on the handiwork of Creation. This blog will attempt to scratch the surface at how weaving the Christ-story with our own through a simple commitment to "being with him" might bring us back to a kind of humanity that makes God step back and say..."This is very good, indeed." Will you join me on this journey with Jesus?