People who hear voices are often labelled as crazy or lunatics. But I hear voices often. I do many crazy things but I am sure of my sanity. Still, I do often hear voices. Like, I often hear that little voice in me gently reminding me to do good, to seek what is true and to celebrate the beautiful. There is a persistent voice that tells me I was born for greater things and the best is yet to come even as I stand at the portals of death. One voice I am particularly attentive to. I often carry on a conversation with a Presence who challenges me to become better and changes me to a new creation. And I respond with faith, trust and gratitude.
Yet, I also hear other voices that tell me otherwise. Grating, unpleasant and just as persistent are voices that would drive me into fits of jealousy and envy over the good others, that would have me deal in lies to subvert the truth, that would make me behave so pridefully and selfishly to fail to see the beauty around me and in others, that would induce me to wallow in laziness or greed or mediocrity. And there are times that I give in to these voices.
Even now, there are people who are in pain who need to hear the voice of comforting words. There are those who are lost or overwhelmed by life’s vicissitudes and they are longing for a voice that would lead them to the path of light and inspiration. There are those who have nothing but the shirt in their back and they are waiting for a voice that would bring them help. And there are those without voice, who are among the least, the lost and the last, and they are in need of someone who would lend them their voices. I shall lend them my voice by sharing whatever of the good, the true and the beautiful that I have. I have received these so abundantly from the Presence whose voice I hear within me and I shall share these generously to all I can.
‘The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep hear his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes ahead of them, and the sheep follow him because they know his voice. They will not follow a stranger, but they will run from him because they do not know the voice of strangers.’
John 10:1-10