Have you tried to enter the world of meditation, contemplation, and solitude? I find it hard to be silent and to enter that world. I have holy jealousy of those who can! Yet, deep within me, there is this need to shut things down and try to listen to the one voice that matters most.

Yet, when I enter or try to enter the silent space, where I don’t speak, where there is not a single noise and where I am in one of most beautiful places, my silence is interrupted by the many voices inside me. Don’t worry; I do not have multiple personalities.

The voices of worries, of anxiety, of wonders, voices of what-ifs, voices of tiredness, the voices of hope and vision, the voices of those I am most close to, and the voice of my own heart. I am not to ignore them, but they come up and they are in the way when I try to listen to the voice that matters. 

I took a sabbatical because of the voices of business, the voices of performance, the voices of people and the restless voice of my soul was getting weak and overwhelmed. Time to stop.

During these last two weeks, I have been mostly on my own, like today and tomorrow. I have flown in aeroplanes, crossed the Atlantic, travelled the NY subway, which is noisy, and ridden on a train for three hours, (very noisy). Somehow, I have become so familiar with these noises that I am not bothered with them, and this unsettles me! 

Is it possible that I have become too used to so many voices that I have forgotten the voice that matters most, and I have silenced that voice that gives me life? Yes, I think I have. 

Yet, the very external noises that so easily distract me were the means by which I am coming to a place of wanting, longing, and desiring to hear the voice that matters.

I know that contemplative prayer is an art of its own, and I need to train myself to master it. Yet, it is the trying that I have found a little respite! It is in the trying that I have exhausted myself that I have enough strength to enter into that place where there is only an audience of one. 

I am so fortunate that he sees me, there are no words because when he sees me, somehow, all other voices are silent. I have missed that. I have allowed other voices to speak, and slowly I was losing that voice that matters, the voice that is found not in wonders, signs, or miracles, but the voice which is encountered through his eyes, and through watching Him.

These two weeks, I have learned and been reminded that when I pray “Come Holy Spirit”, He comes! He comes like the wind, like a gentle breeze at first. It is the lovely place of allowing him to see you and love you. Love’s language is deep, profound, broad, high, and enables me to enter into His Fulness. 

The only noise that I want to hear is the noise of Romans 8 “Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.” (Romans 8:26–27 ESV)