Day by Day

 

 

      I’ve been told, that in some rural cultures today, much as in days gone by, different flocks of sheep will graze together in the same pasture.   As with most sheep, one looks much like another.   Perhaps an exceptionally observant and interested shepherd could tell one lamb apart from another based on its’ natural good looks or a certain twinkle in its’ little beady eyes.  I think it is rather a beautiful thing that in such situations, it is the shepherd’s sheep that differentiate themselves from the ‘others’, by their highly developed listening skills.   It does bring added value to the Christ’s words when He said,  (John 10:27)  “My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me.”  I really don’t know much of anything else about the art of shepherding but this little sentence does say a lot. When the shepherd calls out to his sheep, in a voice ringing out over a hillside that is filled with numerous different sheep herds, grazing together, spread lightly as a field of softly seeded dandelions across the landscape, I can almost imagine the Shepherd’s flock lifting their heads from the delicious and tender green grass, turning ever so slowly in the direction of the beloved sound, reluctantly perhaps, but with quiet obedience turning home and moving deliberately away from their neighbors towards the direction of their own, shepherding, Voice. They go to the Voice they know.

 

When I was a child, I remember trying to be close to God, desiring it with fervor and a passion, but with time and experience the desire and sensation began to grow cold. Then God became a rather distant character.  I never gave up my belief in His existence, but experiencing Him became an idea rather than an incarnation.  I like that word, incarnation because it expresses the down and dirty reality of God, God/man, God incarnate, carne   meaning flesh or meat, the meat of man, the meat of God.   I think it is an idea that can make us uncomfortable.  God made man.  Man is dust. God becomes dust, God making dust like unto God.   How odd.  Some would say crazy

   Anyway to return to the subject at hand, which is an Idea vs. an incarnate God. If God is so like us that He can die, surely he can communicate with us?  So He says, anyway!

   This may seem like a mini miracle or perhaps like a large miracle or perhaps the raving of a mad piece of dust.  I guess it just depends on your perspective.   There have been many times when I believe that I have heard the voice of God in my life.  I began praying in my early twenties.   Generally speaking, in order to recognize the voice of a friend or acquaintance you have to hang with him, so to speak be near him, get to know him by speaking together.  Spend time in other words.  Is it even possible to truly care about someone that you’ve never taken the time to know?   Of course you won’t talk to a person that you don’t believe is actually listening in return. If you did, someone might call you crazy.  Faith is the prerequisite of course, for without it, a court of law may indeed find you mad! God has faith. Some how or other He has faith in us even when we are oblivious of Him.

    When I only believed in God, I never spoke to Him.   Since belief became faith however, I’ve never stopped speaking with Him.  How I went from belief to faith is still something of a mystery.  It is God’s work.   I do remember a time in my early twenties, when I was most distressed.  More distressed than I can even say.   I remember also, ‘the moment’ that I made a decision.  I didn’t know at the time that I had just committed to a life of faith in the “God of my fathers”.  I clearly recall, after a very intense painful argument with someone close to me, putting my head down on a table, seeing the dimly lit proverbial light bulb shine just enough upon my soul to realize that our relationship had nothing to do with LOVE.  At that moment, an inner knowledge of the nature of LOVE was made simple and clear as a cloudless summer sky to me. God spoke silently in a ringing voice, to my heart.  I didn’t know it was Him, but I recognized the Voice.   I decided then to find real love, if it did exist in this world. When I discovered that it was Christ’s voice that spoke to my heart, I decided to follow and obey, like the sheep that turn to their Shepherd in obedience.           

     That was the moment for which I must thank my Grandmother Mary Flynn.  It was she who convinced my parents to send me to a Catholic grammar school.   The cross and Jesus’ dead corpus, hanging upon it, was the dimly lit bulb shining upon my weakened conscience.  How much more powerful that image is, than an empty cross.  The apostle Paul puts it this way,  “but as for me, I will preach Christ and Christ crucified.” Jesus Dead is LOVE!  This is the thought or awareness that seeped into my heart that day.  It was the Gospel that converted me.   Love is all about sacrifice not about having your own needs met.  My head down resting out of pure weariness with the life I had created, living according to my own best guess as to how to live, had crushed me.  I thank God often for that crushing.  I thank Him that he made me weak enough to cry ‘uncle’ at a young age.  As is always the case, when it comes to an incarnate God, there is paradox, foolishness and the absurd.

 

      Now to my mini or maxi miracle, depending upon your own view.  Three days after I gave birth to our first child, a very beautiful perfect little girl, I was sitting in an antique   wicker chair in the back room of our small but cozy apartment in the old family homestead. I was nursing her and wondering how I could love someone so much, someone that I didn’t even know. The feeling was powerful, overwhelming even.  It wasn’t based in knowing her at all. I didn’t know anything about her, what she would be like, what her personality would be like etc. I didn’t know anything.  As I sat there nourishing this little life from my own body, pondering the intense welling up of LOVE I felt for her, I heard a voice. It was an audible voice not just an impression in my heart. I have on many occasions experienced an impression of God’s voice, the intention of His will.  It wasn’t that.  He actually spoke to me audibly in my ears of all things!  It’s not something we expect, yet if God is indeed incarnate, why not?  He does as He wills.  These are the exact words I heard that day as I pondered the deep emotion I felt, “This is how I love you Louise”.  His voice was gentle calm and manly.   It was natural, so natural that I didn’t take note of it for several days afterwards. That probably seems really strange, but if you consider that what we deem beyond the normal is really only perspective once again.   From God’s viewpoint our supernatural is His natural!  

    So,  it was perhaps three days later, when I became consciously aware that I had heard the voice of, I believe, Jesus.    I’ve never forgotten that grace and do on occasion purposely recall His words to me when I find myself struggling even to hold on to my faith in Him let alone my belief.

 

     Jesus once said, “If your eye is full of light, then your whole body will be full of light.”  What began in me as a feeble stream of light emanating from that proverbial light bulb barely able to disperse the darkness of my heart, has gradually matured into a greater light, filling a room, and someday will probably reflect more of the outside summer sunshine. Day by day, that is.     

  Day by Day