Voice

I have written this a dozen times in a dozen different ways over the past week. Some letters silly, some serious, some philosophical, some poetic - in the end, I chose to write from my heart and let you decide which one fits.

Often I write in the middle of the night while my daughter is awake, quietly playing beside me on the bed, her little fingers wrapped around one or three of mine. There is a clarity that comes with darkness. Most of us spend our childhoods in fear of the dark, only to spend our time as adults seeking the peace that arrives in everything we cannot see.

We can see a nightingale perched upon a tree, we notice when it sings, and when it doesn't. But, in the middle of the night when we sleep, very seldom do we see the heartbeat that charts a course toward the pull of the moon. It's this earthly rhythm that calls to us. There is an ebb and flow to everything, but unless we stop the hands of time, the beauty of this natural process is unintentionally taken for granted. We just simply, miss it. We miss the joyful note the nightingale sings, merely recognizing the presence of noise, not the sweet melody carried by only this one voice.

You have a voice in this world that is unique. You leave these softly humming impressions upon the fabric of time, the thread weaving this tapestry we call life. As a flower blooms, the first petal to unfold is the one closest to the sun. We gravitate towards warmth, any constant element, it is a basic human instinct. Yet, that instinct grows its roots deep. The rain nourishes, refreshes, but it does so in tones so melancholy. God created the rainbow to be its eternal opposite and equal. That is where we leave traces, these everlasting impressions of ourselves. By design, we absorb the atmosphere surrounding us, and after a while, we become the rain that falls from Heaven. In this life, we touch the floor of Heaven, with broken wings never meant to fly, we still rise above. That is the magic of new beginnings.

Judgements are harsh, too easy to pass when we are safe in a world of our own making. I have learned the hard way, safety nets rust from usage over time, and the ground below can leave you feeling shaken. God always provides the building blocks for a new foundation, but often extraordinary leaps of faith are required. They must be extraordinary, or we miss the beauty in taking those leaps if we are solely focused on maintaining the ordinary.

Use your voice for good. For kindness. For courage.