That's God Talk
"So where does it come from?" the young woman asked.
"From a place on the edge of tomorrow looking back at yesterday," I
replied.
I've been asked so many times about my writing. To the point of
embarrassment I read warm, generous comments about my work and deal with
them one word at a time. It's the only way I can accept it. But she
wanted to be there where I go to find the words. I couldn't take her
there. I could only describe it from the outside looking in.
"I have fallen in love with words," I told her. "Not that I have any
right to, but I have been courting them long enough that we've become
one. Like a marriage, I treat words with respect and select from my
limited vocabulary the ones that best tell the story as I see it."
"So where do you find the stories?" she asked.
"They find me. They come falling down around me like a gentle rain on a
summer's evening when you are hot and tired from a long exhausting day.
The thoughts are like droplets of water that hit me one by one, but
after a while they all form together and saturate my mind with such an
intensity that I must respond to them or drown," I told her.
"So they start with a single thought?" she wondered.
"No, they start with a flicker of light," I said. Then pausing for a
moment to come up with an appropriate image, I was reminded of a silly,
childish thing I do.
"In the middle of cold winter night when you have piled on extra
blankets and all the lights are off, did you ever roll over in bed and
see little streaks of lightening flicker beneath the covers?" I asked.
"No, I don't believe I have," she replied with an awkward look on her
face.
"Then you must sleep well at night. You see, my mind doesn't stop. I
often awaken in the middle of the night with visions of people and
places I've been. I scramble to make sense of them, but fail most every
time. It's then when I tuck my head under the covers that I see them.
Little flashes of light caused by static. I love when that happens.
I'm creating my own personal lightening.
I find peace under the covers. To this very day, whenever I want to
hide away from the world, I pull the cover up over my head and think,
"No one knows where I am right now." It's great!
Well, the other night I rediscovered lightening," I said.
Then spinning around on my heal, like a fancy magician, I said "Ta Da!
"That's where the story begins. Like a spark in the dark part of my
mind, it flashes and grabs my spirit. It's God talk, I believe."
"God talk?" she asked.
"Yes, God doesn't always use words to guide us. That's where I always
went wrong. I was listening for words. God sends sparks. Little
oooohs and aaaaahhhhs. Sometimes it's an unfamiliar sound that pokes at
your curiosity stirring it, daring you to look. Yet, most of us turn
away not recognizing that it could be the answer we have been searching
for all of our lives. But we are spoiled by technology that dazzles us
and steals away our imagination and buries it under brain numbing
nonsense.
But God Talk is sacred and singular. He sends me lightening under my
covers and also people, thousands of people. Each of them writing their own
story and never recognizing that they are in control of how the story
ends. So I steal from them the things that they discard along the way.
Brilliant thoughts, spirit filled words with wings that take flight in
my soul and flood my mind with a million possibilities.
But, they don't see it. I do."
"Like the movie "The Sixth Sense," she said laughing.
"Exactly. I see dead people, too," I said slowly and deliberately..
The smile went off her face. I laughed at her.
"They are dead to the world! Dead to the gifts that God has given them.
Their ears can't hear the God talk. So I see it, I hear it, I write
about it and talk about it in my speeches and seminars."
"Maybe it's another way," she said.
"Another way for what?" I asked.
"Maybe God knows that the only way He can get to some of them is to use
people like you, writers, poets and speakers. Your words, His
thoughts," she said.
"Yes, and through you, my friend. He sent you here. You gave me my
story for today. You were my spark of lightening. We are each other's
light in a world that has been dimmed by negativity, doubt and fear.
Be the light and listen. That's God Talk."
~ Bob Perks ~
2believe@comcast.net
[ by: Bob Perks Copyright © 2006 (2believe@comcast.net) -- {used with permission} ]
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