So Long The Silence Remains

I watched too much television once. At least I learned about forensics and asking questions. Television is all about asking questions and sharing suspicions. Television is just heat lightning on the horizon. It flashes occasionally, but there’s no thunder, no rain. My friends say that television is not good for our minds and causes typographical errors. Someone suggested that we should read books.

I read a book once. At least I tried. I don’t know if it counts if the book is never discussed or used in conversation. But I tried to read a book and contemplate life and other things. Most of the time my friends and I just talk about each other and people in the news and familiar people we see around town. And my friends say that I have good manners but bad mannerisms. And my friends say that my mannerisms are so stylized and playful, that sometimes it is hard for them to know when I am bored with other people from around town. The only topic this summer is sex. Only two reminders forgiveness and mercy. And everyone has an opinion on the church’s opinion on abortion and someone wrote something about homelessness and poverty and the death penalty. But in this town there is always day chasing night, wrong teasing right.

There is always talk of vacation plans with lemonade, there is always talk of vocation plans in prayers at church. I wonder if is anyone listening. Is anyone carefully putting the words from the sermons into nice genuine suitcases in the lobby of a patient mind, ready to be unpacked later, unpacked and studied later? Will the words be neat or squished? And the words will be words with meaning, some of my friends try to explain to me when they speak of love, faith and God. And the words will be more than words for those who have a desire or longing for a true vocation.

Some folks are lucky to be freckled with hope and love and understanding all over their faces and all through their hearts! And vocation is really a nice word, really nice. So nice to me and some of my friends. Something in the word makes me smile. I sometimes hear “welcome” and “thank you” and “you are loved” when I hear the word vocation.

Sometimes just mumbling the word under my breath, makes me smile. There is some type of power in vocation. Thinking about the word makes me smile. I like thinking about words that make me smile. I always like to remember them or to talk about them with or without my friends around.

And one Sunday when my friends were out of town I went to church all by myself. And I arrived early before the organist even touched the keyboard. Then I glanced at the other faces in the other pews and thought about vocation all by myself. Thought about my responsibilities, my being humble, my job. I just stared and stared until I had to close my eyes and think of the sacraments and the virtues and prayers and folks freckled with God’s hope and love.

Then, as the choir began to sing, my heart felt something beyond the melody, beyond the words. My heart hummed “Yes.”

And then I grabbed vocation and looked at it with a silence infused by Saint Paul’s writings!

That was my first truly adult thought. It was the most romantic, selfless moment of my life.

Until I remembered “So long the silence remains, So long the prayers begin”