Lent 2: Dominant Voices

She had an unmistakable voice, some thought it was beautiful. Fresh from her high school chorus where she stood out among the others, she arrived at our first college choir rehearsal ready to assume a leading role. She took her place in the front row and sang with the gusto of an opera soprano. The director tried to get her to soften her tone and listen to the other voices, but she didn’t know how. She’d never done it before.

“The melody’s getting lost,” he pointed out, “as well as the harmonies.” She nodded as if she understood but continued her dominant performance. Little did I know the valuable lesson she was teaching me.

Recently, I was talking to a group of soulful sojourners, and the topic of negative voices came up. Despite our best efforts to listen to the positive, optimistic, voices within, the negative voices are sometimes the only ones we can hear, we confessed. Like the classmate in college, the negative voices seem to take their places in the front row and sing in such a way as to drown out all the others. As a result, we can’t hear the divine melody of our lives, nor the sacred harmonies around it.

It's hard to hear you’re a child of God when all you hear is how flawed you are.

It’s hard to hear that life’s a blessing when all you hear is what’s wrong with it.

It’s hard to hear the joy of life when all you hear is life is about striving and winning.

Yes, the negative voices are loud, but the season of Lent is a time to stand back and listen for other voices, the ones that come from God. It’s the season to silence, or at least quiet, the dominant sopranos screeching in the front row and listen to other voices and the melody given long ago.