Hearing Voices

            I was minding my own business the other morning – just tidying up the gardens near the side-walk with no one else around - when I heard someone say to me in a sing-songy voice, “Why won’t you let me love you?” 

Since God does not yet usually speak to me in such a direct manner, I looked around for the source of the question.  All I saw was the backside of a sweaty woman jogging by wearing earphones. 

I was both relieved and disappointed she didn’t seem to be talking to me personally.  But then I realized that she was obviously a secret messenger – so far undercover that she herself did not even know she had been chosen to carrying this message to me.

            The rest of the day, I’ve been contemplating her question: “Why won’t you let me love you?”  I take it mostly as an invitation to receive something that is already here.  What if this is the question from the leafy stillness of the trees?  From the flat humility of the sidewalk?  From the shushing sound of the passing cars?

            I consider the possibility of relaxing my heart long enough to let in what I have been longing for all my life.  Of course, I don’t really know how to do this, but even in the imagining, something slips in.  I see through, for a moment, the ancient delusion of separateness. 

I smile in recognition of my silliness and go on with my day.