Say Blog about ten times fast. It's a funny word. I'm sure y'all'll have no trouble believing that I've never been on a blog site before. I may need a lesson or two. If you have any pointers, let me know.
So here's a quote from Henri Nouwen. (Ask me sometime and I'll tell you about the time I had lunch at his house.) I planned to share this at dinner last week, but I forgot.
"From all that I have said about our worried, overfilled lives, it is clear that we are usually surrounded by so much outer noise that it is hard to truly hear our God when he is speaking to us. We have often become deaf, unable to know when God calls us and unable to understand in which direction he calls us.
Thus our lives have become absurd. In the word absurd we find the Latin word surdus, which means "deaf." A spiritual life requires discipline because we need to learn to listen to God, who constantly speaks but whom we seldom hear.
When, however, we learn to listen, our lives become obedient lives. The work obedient comes from the Latin work audire, which means "listening." A spiritual discipline is necessary in order to move slowly from an absurd to an obedient life, from a life filled with noisy worries to a life in which there is some free inner space where we can listen to our God and follow his guidance.
Jesus' life was a life of obedience. He was always listening to the Father, always attntive to his voice, always alert for his directions. Jesus was "all ear." That is true prayer: being all ear for God. The core of all prayer is indeed listening, obediently standing in the presence of God.
--from Making All Things New by Henri Nouwen
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I agree with you. The outer noise deafness is an epidemic. That's one of the big things I've been trying to work on (with thanks to Louise Walker). With how busy Drew and I will be this year, it's going to take even more deliberate attention to stay in tune with the voice of God. I hope we all grow in this way.
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