How does God speak to you?

I’ve wrestled with this all my life. I wish I was confident enough to say how God speaks to me. I’d like a road map, please God, on how to hear you. I’d like to place my feet in your footprints on the sand just like in the poem.

But I never have felt that. And good people, well meaning people, people of firm faith and great integrity have told me how very clearly God speaks to them. It’s by the process of prayer of course. But the intricacies of the process have always eluded me, despite understanding the theory. I’ve been around churches all my life and listened to sermons and heard testimonies and seen faces radiant with the joy of knowing and wondered what they knew.

Let me tell you a story. It was a dark dank Saturday night in December and our cathedral choir was singing Messiah. Rows on rows of cassocked cherubic faces, some so sick with nerves that they needed the prop of the friendly choir matron in the front row to hold their eye and calm their jitters. I settled in for the evening. I know Messiah. I’ve sung it many times and given the chance, I’d have been up there on the stage this night, even sick with nerves.

Now Messiah ends with 'Amen' which isn’t a surprise as most good Christian texts tend to do the same. I’ve heard Messiah’s ‘Worthy is the Lamb’ and the subsequent ‘Amen’ hundreds of times. But this time was different.

Amen starts, as always low in the bass voices and is built through the rest of the choir. I noted our trusty assistant organist leave his post at the harpsichord and scurry to the organ seat. Amen began to bite and all of a sudden, I was clamped between its teeth, held fast and firm. I hunched forward the better to process this undefinable feeling, using all my energy to contain the surge of adrenaline – and I have to say it – the pure delight coursing through my psyche. The harmonies wove themselves in numinous counterpoint around my toes and my ankles, through my limbs and up to my eyes and my ears, wrapping my body in what I can only describe as a big cosmic hug.

Was that God speaking to me?

Two days later, I was acolyting at our Cathedral carol service. (There’s always a degree of self interest in volunteering for this particular gig as you get a nice comfy seat at the top of the church with a bird’s eye view of proceedings whilst the congregation queue patiently for hours to be corralled in at ten to a pew). It’s not the sort of service where to be fair you’d expect a numinous experience of God. Most people are there to sing ‘Once in Royal David’s City’ and feel Christmassy.

We sang ‘Hark the Herald’ which was my first husband’s very favourite carol. He had a beautiful tenor voice and I always hear it as I whisper, ‘This one’s for you, Pete.’

This time though, was different. Suddenly, he was standing beside me. And before you assume anything, no, I hadn’t been on the sherry or the wacky baccy. I was the very model of a house-trained cathedral acolyte in my white alb and Christmas apparel, on parade and on my best behaviour (always a challenge).

But he was there, singing with me.

And then he took my hand. He said, ‘The children have done so well. Well done.’

He died when they were two and four. And I have always carried inside me, well-packaged and tied up, the grief of his absence in their lives and the pain that he never saw the beautiful people they have become.

Then he was gone and it was time to be blessed at the end of the service. I collected my candle and carried the light through the cathedral back to all the people in the pews.

I’ve always maintained that God doesn’t speak to me. I took great comfort when Mother Teresa came out and said he didn’t speak to her either. I felt in illustrious company and not quite so outside the city wall. And I know it’s a while since Christmas, it being Candlemas and all, but it’s taken a while to process. Things do.

And now, I think God must be holding her head in her hands and saying, ‘Shall I send a bloke with a megaphone next time to poke in your right ear? Or a little bi-plane with a banner twelve feet long flying over your house saying, ‘God Really Does Love You?’

Okay God. Thank you. I heard.

megaphone

 image by cheska poon

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'The Art of Spiritual Writing by Eirene and Richard Palmer is available on Amazon or direct from Eirene and Richard at spirwrite@gmail.com