The Small Still Voice

Tonight was our last RCIA class before the BIG DAY. I discovered that my marriage HAS to be convalidated before I can be baptized thus making Saturday a REALLY BIG DAY. Tonight we reviewed what we'd be doing and when...important things like how to hold out your hand for the host, and to remember that the chalice was HEAVY and that not dropping it would be a good thing.

But we also spent some time mediating over the Nicene Creed (yes the new translation) and over the "Our Father." We were asked to pick a line that spoke to us and I choose the "Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven." Funnily the two women I was sharing with at the end also picked this line. We talked a bit about not knowing the path before us,and not always understanding what God's will was anyway. Ever since we moved here to Athens I feel a bit like each step I take is kind of blind. I am not sure what is going to happen in the next couple of  years. I don't know what I'll be doing. It's a scary feeling for an anxious person like me.  I'm used to my lists, and my goals. I'm not used to not knowing or at least not having a plan.

In addition, I am not sure how I feel about the whole God speaking to one thing. It scares me a bit to use this kind of language because it reminds me to much of my religious past where God's voice was rather frightening and condemning. I'm trying to reconcile a few different theological ideas about God's voice as I struggle to figure what it means to follow God's will.

One part of me is inclined towards the idea that the answers lies with in us and that prayer/mediation is a way of encountering that which we already know. Or that praying is a way to settle all the different directions are minds go in and to reflect upon what we have read, heard, etc. Another part of me sort of wishes that a loud voice would just shout at me what I'm supposed to do...that someone else would make a decision for me. But that's not going to happen, I'm afraid.

After class, I sat outside wating for H and watching a storm roll through lightening blazing around the cross that rises up from the chapel. Even with the thunder, it was silent, and I sort of sat there, remembering the words of Sister Marie and Julie (a woman I greatly admired) who both said "The voice of God is often a small, quiet voice. You have to be in silence to hear it." What a simple, profound statement. I sat there in that silence and didn't think about anything. I didn't worry. I didn't ask for advice. I just sat. And then later at home, while I washed the evening dishes and in the silence that comes from children doing their own things, I thought you asked if this was enough, and it is. This life is enough. If there is nothing else, it doesn't matter because what you have is a gift.