Ash Wednesday

"Find a place in your heart and speak there with the Lord." Theophan the Recluse.


Listening with my heart is difficult business. I have never had visions or heard voices in ways that I read and hear about others in their communication with God. No flashy trumpets and light. No burning bushes or physical miracles. No quaking or tongues.


So I wrestle with the question of what God would have me do. Where shall I be to speak with God and know with quiet calm that it is He that is responding or commanding?


I identify with the recluse, wanting to re-energize myself in quiet, personal, separate reflection. But when I see and hear God with confidence, it is in the persons and voices and faces of those I meet each day. So, for me, if I listen with my heart, it is there that I must be. As a friend put it to me last weekend, I am working "against type." It is a discipline I must engage in each day and in each encounter—to make myself be open to the possibilities and messages God is putting before me.


God be praised for his patient presence before me in the persons He puts in my way each new day. Thanks too, for the understanding that leads me to that place in my heart that allows me to speak with the Lord.