Five-minute Friday: Whisper

Faith falls upon my ears in a hush, in a whisper, in a rising intonation. It is not often shouted, preached or pitched, but more often the layer of quiet, rooted underground. It is a voice easily lost, yet often right at shoulder level, at the turn of the head, or at a child's level, stooped low.

In pain, perhaps, it whispers the loudest, the clearest. At least it has for me. That point just beyond the broken sobs, the deep raspy breaths, the doubled-over frame, when all is still, even for a moment - that is when I hear its melody breaking through. And maybe it was singing all along, but I could not hear it above the roar of pain, or maybe it was waiting for this moment in the eye of the storm of emotion.

Waiting in the pause, the downbeat, the inhale, the emptying, the surrender.

It is a voice, not seeking to resolve itself, absolve itself, of all question and doubt, but to carry on in the pitch blackest of nights, the same as it would in the showers of sun. The same in a lunar eclipse as in the harvest moon; the same in the winter freeze as in the noonday heat of mid July. It keeps whispering, keeps singing, and when there seems to be no voice at all, as often there is not even this quiet voice to be heard, it is in the absence of its whisper our ears may open to hear the sound of holy presence.

Holy, holy, holy. This earth, these bodies - mine and yours and theirs - these paper walls, these broken streets, these falling stars and clouded moons, are filled with glory, his glory.

A sound beyond reason, beyond belief, beyond sight, beyond the reach of theology and doctrine and all our man-made efforts of interpreting God, this is the presence, the place where faith whispers its endless invitation-question, Come closer?

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Linking up with Kate and the Five-minute Friday community, to the prompt of "Whisper."