Whispers And Screams

Saturday morning I packed a small bag with snacks, my camera, and my journal, then headed out for a "Misty" day. Friends had been unable to join me, so I set out for a day of solo adventuring. But, knowing it often happens on my solo adventures, I hoped he would show up.

At a nearby park, I hiked down towards the river that ran underground into a cave---not a hike with the intention of achieving a particular heart rate or feeling the burn in my muscles---I simply desired to walk towards him. The breeze brushed my skin, and the coolness of underground air wrapped around me. I breathed the woodsy scent of trees and nature and paused to look upwards where the sun shone through an opening of treetops.

And I felt him. Despite the chatter of nearby tourists, I finally felt that it was just me and him. Not me and a daily stack of new challenges, not me and personal conflicts, not me and anxiety about the approaching week. Just me. And him.

The world often seems to scream loudly at me. But for that moment, in his creation, his quiet whisper drowned out the screams of the world. I know he is with me even when I do not feel him, but I had been longing to feel him. As the tourists passed by, I maintained my composure, although the deepest part of me yearned desperately to kneel at the riverbank and weep at the reality of his nearness. I had originally planned to spend at least a part of my walk in prayer, yet I found that words weren't needed.

I drove down the road to a smaller town, where I parked my car and walked idly through the square, browsing through boutiques and quiet shops, admiring the sparkle of jewelry and touching the silkiness of scarves. The only customer, I browsed unhurriedly through a quaint antique mall on a quiet farm, knowing that---not being a collector---I wouldn't buy a single item, yet feeling the simplicity continue to soothe me: wooden floors and cabin-like walls, hand-made quilts and placemats, the rich colors of fall decorations and beauty of Christmas ornaments, picture after picture of artwork and paintings, and barrels of items that took me back twenty-five years to my grandparents' cozy house in the countryside. I reached out to touch a dainty ornament hanging from a humble Christmas tree. My fingertips, roughened from awaking early each morning to play my guitar before work, snagged on the soft, delicate fabric. Beauty. Stillness. And his continual closeness.

"I'm not ready to go back," I thought, as my glance at the clock reminded me what my return to reality would bring---jobs with constant newness, stress-inducing meetings and medical appointments, challenges that are stretching me far behind my comfort zone, personal concerns. And it would be harder to feel him. The world would be screaming at me again.

"Whisper to me louder than the world screams," I softly breathe to him tonight, trying to recapture in my memory the scent of trees and the rush of the river, the colors of hand-painted ornaments alongside simple wooden walls. "Whisper to me louder than the world screams," I ask again, a little more urgently, as anxiousness of the coming week drowns out the stillness.

But the inner battle between peace and angst seems to continue, and the only whisper I hear among the screaming is:

"Keep listening."

I am a little disappointed, because I long to hear more.

But I keep listening..

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