"A Very, Very Faint Voice From Deep, Deep Within Me."

I was going through some old files the other day, in preparation to having them shredded.

And I came across a piece of paper with the following three sentences taped to it:

"I heard a very, very faint voice from deep, deep within me. Really only the echo of a voice. It was asking for life."

The tape and piece of paper with the words on it fell off the original sheet of paper on which were similar ideas and pictures pasted all over in a montage style.

I had a sense that the words were still echoing and that they wanted to be heard yet again. This was reinforced a while later when I was putting away the last scattered pieces and I saw that piece again. When I went to tear it in half, it "resisted" partly because of the scotchtape. It was almost like it was saying "don't just throw me away."

I virtually never talk about my clinical work here on this blog. But it's 30 years since I saw that person so I will share this one piece of information. It was written by a young woman who felt that she was a "throwaway child" who came from a family which both abused people and also conspired to scapegoat anyone who dared to speak of those violations. Thus the significance of the voice - very faint, very deep, really only an echo (how hidden is that source?) - asking for life.

It got me thinking about where my voice is, where her voice is, where your voice is.

Is there a part of each of us which is talking to ourselves? An internal dialogue, and ongoing? And do we take the time to listen, really listen? And can we hear it in the midst of all of the noise which surrounds us?

I remember reading Neale David Walsch's book(s) on Conversations With God. He talks about how he was sitting in his kitchen one day reflecting on the wreck that his life had become. And he was writing about it, and he wrote about asking where God was and how come he never speaks to him. To his surprise he "heard" God who said that he had been there all along, but he (David) was never listening. That led to an ongoing conversation between the two of them which formed the basis of his books.

Do we have to hear our own voice before we can hear anyone else's? Or do we have to stop listening to our own voice over and over again, before we can really hear anyone else's?

We all yearn for those conversations, to hear and to be heard.

Thanks for listening. And thanks to that young woman who spoke those words for all of us to hear.

Addendum: Several minutes after I put this post up on my blog, my eyes again found the piece of paper and scotchtape. I picked it up, and the scotch tape fell off.