Whispers of the Spirit

by Anne Apple

A  peculiar personage, and I trust it is the whisper of the Spirit, appeared when Abigail, our resident four year old theologian, asked me, in the middle of a day, seemingly out of the blue, "Do you have your voice back?"

I responded without much thought, "Not really, sweetie pie, maybe tomorrow."

She asked, "Does that mean the next day, Momma?"

Abigail's question reminded me that the evening before while reading to her at bedtime, my imagination had vacated the premises. I was in a dark place, 'checked out' and was utterly down in the dumps.

My sadness was related to the biblical witness of the women who came to Christ's tomb bearing spices and ointment. They left the tomb with a story to tell which fell as idle, irrelevant. The story they had to tell, a story of hope and new life, fell on ears unable to hear.

The rolling sadness of my soul was also about images of war; images from Iraq in the newspaper; images from a sanctuary at a Saturday presbytery meeting; and even very real images from within our home. With a husband out of town I was wearied from my week and carried a certain sense of anxiety.

Anxiety brooded and percolated out of my work within the church in the life of a presbytery where unnecessary shredding of God's good children goes on. It also flowed from the work of parenting where similar shredding and picking at one another goes on between our two adolescent children.

As I read to Abigail, in a vacant sort of place, I wondered if I would ever again see a blue sky and feel the sun's warmth. I also had the echo of a statement rolling around in my head. That day I'd had lunch with an intelligent gifted clergy woman who'd said to me as we parted, "You know, Anne, we just don't honor one another's story."

It seemed as if my aloof 'checked out' nature about my night time ritual with Abigail was related to my intuition about the women who went to the tomb whose voices weren't heard and this one echo, "You know, Anne, we just don't honor one another's story."

Abigail had asked me about the next day, because the night before, when it had come time for our evening ritual of bath, teeth brushing, books, prayer and song, I'd said to Abigail at song time, "I can't sing tonight honey. I've lost my ability to sing. I've lost my voice."

Being four, to Abigail, 'lost' meant it was gone, permanently erased from existence. More importantly, lost meant I couldn't sing our ritual lullaby, one important piece of our sending to sleep was silenced. Our ritual was fractured and Abigail was seeking restoration.

The words of our special song are simply a lullaby of love. "I  L-O-V-E  Y-O-U, you're all of my dreams coming true, from the tip of your nose to the bottom of your toes, I  L-O-V-E  Y-O-U."

Putting Abigail to sleep, tending to the ordinary, I was not able to be myself, to show my enthusiasm for life in all the corners. I was still unable to engage in even the simplest aspect of our bedtime routine in which, while singing, I touch her nose and tickle her toes. I was prickled by the pain of being irrelevant and having an idle tale to share. Overwhelmed by very real images of war in the world, in our presbytery and in our home and the potential that I had been self-righteously deaf to a sister's story, this songster couldn't sing. It's an odd thing for me not to be able to sing. A secret passion of mine is to crank up Amy Grant and sing loudly with her along the way.

My inability to sing to Abigail that particular night was directly related to feeling that I did not have a voice, and it also persisted from worship that week. The day after a difficult presbytery meeting, as I stood with the gathered congregation to sing, I looked around and listened because I couldn't find my voice. I think Kierkegaard had something distinctly right when he reflected upon prayer as listening, not as talking. It's startlingly prayerful to listen in a sanctuary to voices raised in praise.

I heard the voices of Bob and Mary Lou singing, a few pews back, who a previous pastor remembers rightly as 'Saints.' I heard Willow singing, who quickly taught me I couldn't make up stories for the pictures in books when she, as an early reader, boldly proclaimed, "That's not what the words say. That's not the real story."

I looked to the pulpit from the west side of the sanctuary alcove and out into the main body of the congregation. Literally, I was taken with what I saw and heard. I've stood with some at the baptismal font and broken bread with others at the Lord's Table. Abigail and I have even prayed and shed tears with some at the grave of loved ones. One friend who I saw singing, who tells me she can't sing very well, once told me in Lent, "I can't give anything up. I gave up my husband to death from cancer in Lent, and that was enough sacrifice for a lifetime."

While I was busy looking around and listening in the sanctuary, my sisters came to me. This is the weird part. My sisters in Christ for whom and with whom I've studied, listened and laughed; worshiped and wept... came before me. They were not physically in the sanctuary space, but I distinctly heard their voices singing, fearlessly like Willow's statement of truth about the story in the book.

I heard them singing, "Angels, descending, bring from above, echoes of mercy, whispers of love. This is my story, this is my song, praising my Savior all the day long ..." Gathered by God, in the middle of worship, I heard the voices of women who were not physically present singing God's lullaby of love.

Since I couldn't sing, I told my story. I told my sister friend who is a college chaplain that she'd been 'with me' in worship. I told her, "I couldn't sing Sunday, but I heard your voice swaddling me, singing with the rest of the congregation."

And she responded, “That's strange. All day Sunday I had a song stuck in my head; I was singing these few words, ‘There is a balm in Gilead that soothes the sin sick soul.’ ” When she sang me the portion of the stanza, she honored my story. She provided ointment to soothe the pain found deep in my silence, the pain of being irrelevant, of bearing an idle tale before the world at war, before the presbytery, and before our children. I needed her voice and her song of balm. The Spirit whispered in that moment, "Anne, this is your daily bread. Take. Eat. Do this in remembrance of me. I will keep your going out and your coming in from this time on and forevermore."

So I prayed:

Merciful One,
   who sends witnesses to ask,
      'Why do you look for the living
among the dead?'
   who compels tears from the daughters of Jerusalem saying,
     'Weep for yourselves and for
your children.'
   Who allows freedom to stand still and be sad,
Thank you
   For whispers of love and echoes of mercy
   For the freedom to silently cry before you,
        'How long, O Lord? How long?'
   For ears to hear sister's songs and stories
Pull all your people to worship with
cords of grace
   Instruct us with the gift of a story of hope
      A story known
         when torn heavens held
your cry, the initial love lullaby,
'This is my beloved.'
         when children ask about
the next day
      A story spoken
         by nurturing women, idly heard,
yet still sung by generations
Trusting in You,
   Send me with your story,
      With your people,
         Hoping for a reconciling, reforming, restored world
Amen.

Anne Apple is Parish Associate at Idlewald Presbyterian Church in Memphis, TN.