Speaking out

One of the recurring themes of my spiritual journey has been that it occasionally seems to come to a stop. Not a full stop, and never giving any sense of completion nor of failure to achieve the aims of the journey, but rather as though I have stepped upon a ‘pause button’ during my walk. The urge to continue is heightened by my apparent inability to do so, and that inability is locked in with an inner struggle which, whatever the particular details at the time, is invariably born of the same underlying choice: - to speak out or to remain silent.

Within the last twelve months this has happened four times, each with its own distinct subject matter, and, as well as having learned that there are times when remaining silent seems absurd, but during which that silence is required as part of a compliance with Our Lord’s instruction to trust Him, there are other occasions when failing to speak out and generally shunning any form of publicity contradicts our longing and our professed intention to follow Him.

When I first sat down to begin thinking about posting to this blog, I was battling with that same choice; do I actually go ahead with it, or do I give in to my nervous confusion over making my thoughts known? Do I venture forth, taking what felt like an enormous step into the unknown, or do I rapidly retreat into being the quiet, reserved and for the most part hidden person that I more naturally am? That I took the step is now clear for all to see, but is particularly clear to myself. It was meant to be, and I am sometimes astonished by the cumulative effect of the words I have written. The soliloquy has been going on for years, and much of it has been at the very edge, but in having brought some of it to the written page I have begun to make more real and meaningful that which had tended to have a nebulous dreamlike quality.

I have recently been in a similar do-I-don’t-I situation over making myself more known. In fact I do not mean that at all; what I have said in my profile still stands. It is the blog itself, and the thoughts contained therein that I wish to make more known. Experience has taught me that sitting in silence waiting for others to come with the very things we most need leads to a long lonely vigil. There is a place for such things in life, and there will be times when that may be asked of us, but in the busy marketplace with stallholders calling and chattering all around, we can not expect to make ourselves known, let alone sell our wares to those who may be looking for them, by sitting silently in the background. We must at least give ourselves the chance of being found by those who may enjoy and benefit from what we offer. The need for the promotion of all that is good in the marketplace must never be forgotten, for the presence of all that is bad (and the myriad forms of compromise) continues undiminished.

'For words flow out of what fills the heart. Good people draw good things from their store of goodness; bad people draw bad things from their store of badness'(Matthew 12:34-35)

Hence my recent decision to add this ongoing stream of words to more lists of what is available.
Having made the decision not to remain too silent, I can rest in the knowledge that others are now, as it were, speaking out for me.
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