give us ears

It is a beautiful, overcast & rainy Sunday morning. With fresh made coffee in hand  I close my eyes and still my mind and heart and wait...wait to hear. 
Waiting to hear beyond myself...his whispers.

 He speaks music, beauty, peace...its so simple. Why do I complicate things? Why does it take me so long to sit with him, hear him...be still.

The Din Undoes Us

(written in anticipation of reading 1 Samuel 2-3: [Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening])

Our lives are occupied territory…
occupied by a cacophony of voices,
and the din outdoes us.

In the daytime we have no time to listen,
beset as we are by anxiety and goals
and assignments and work,
and in the night the voices are so confusing
we can hardly sort out what could possibly be your voice
from the voice of our mothers and our fathers
our best friends and our pet projects,
because they all sound so much like you.

We are people over whom that word shema has been written.
We are listeners, but we do not listen well.
So we bid you, by the time the sun goes down today
or by the time the sun comes up tomorrow,
by night or by day,
that you will speak to us in ways that we can hear
out beyond ourselves.
It is your speech to us that carries us where we have never been,
and it is your speech to us that is our only hope.
So give us ears.
Amen.

~ Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth: Prayers of Walter Brueggemann.

 

I can see clearly again, I have his song in my heart and I sing. I sing praise for the beauty around me, I sing thanks for the noisemakers- those four that He is using to bring me to my knees; before him, with him, in him. And in that place 'I am carried to the places I have never been', only dreamed of.
Yes, Lord give me ears.