Inner Voice

Vincent van Gogh said: "If you hear a voice within you say' you cannot paint' then by all means paint, and that voice will be silenced".

I suppose we all have a voice like that, discouraging, making fun of our desires, minimising our self-worth and capabilities. The voice of our Critic, or our Censor, always challenges us in what we want to do, or what we should do.

I have this voice inside me, sometimes it is loud, and sometimes, there is barely a whisper. There is little variation in its content; or at least that is what I hear.

To be able to write and think, I need to silence the whispering niggles in the background. I need to be bold and clear, eloquent in my thinking and writing. Challenging my trains of thought and finding answers to the mystery we call God; for self-knowledge is the road to discovering the God within me. To know yourself is to know God.

I keep hearing the voice saying the same words: "others write more eloquently, others have already covered this material, there is nothing new under the sun".

On one level that is probably true, there is nothing new under the sun. When I read Richard Rohr, I recognise some of Henri Nouwen's words, or Teilhard de Chardin.  There is nothing new under the sun; however, it is new to me. I get excited because I found a – temporarily – answer to what puzzles me.

I need to trust myself. Anything to do with discovering the Stillness, the Divine, the Creator, challenges me to leave my well-trodden path into the discovery of new tracks, new high ways and byways. To put my feet in the babbling brook or wade into the crashing waves at the beach; that I may find the answer for myself in an unexpected place.

To silence the voice, that has great pleasure in telling us: 'we cannot, or we should not do' what we desire to, we frankly have to take the plunge and follow our hearts desire.

Yes we might fail, more likely we will succeed. To co-create with our Creator, is what we are called to do.

I am what I am becoming.