Listening to the Music

Imagine traveling to a remote and isolated land, where the people have had little contact with western technology - perhaps deep in a rain forest or a distant desert. After a long journey, your guide and interpreter brings you to a small village. The people greet you curiously, but warmly. As the sun sets, you share a meal with your new friends. After eating, you pull a radio out of your knapsack, and turn it on. You look at the villagers, amused by the looks on their faces as they listen to a radio music broadcast for the first time.

The headman of the village points to the radio and speaks through your interpreter: "He asks, what are those voices?" You ask the interpreter to explain that they are the voices of people singing. "But how can the people fit in that little box?" the headman asks. Smiling, you explain that the people are not in the box, but far away, across the ocean. The interpreter translates this, and the villagers break into laughter, slapping their thighs and pointing in your direction. The headman raises his hand to quiet them, then speaks again: "He says the villagers mean no offense, but they think you are crazy. Everyone knows only God’s voice can travel in this way."

Something about the headman’s words, this strange but welcoming place, and the flickering light of the fire help you to understand something - not about their culture, but about your own. While you take radio for granted, you’ve always thought people who claimed to hear God’s voice were as crazy as the villagers think you are. After all, you’ve never heard His voice. Therefore, it doesn’t exist, right? But then, just because the villagers had never heard music travelling through the air doesn’t mean that the music doesn’t exist, does it?

In a recent religious education class, I was talking to a group of children and their parents about "listening to the music." I explained that, like music heard through a radio, the music of God’s voice comes to us invisibly but can be heard in many ways, and in many times and places, by those who’ve "tuned in" to His frequency.

A few minutes later, while parents and other religious educators were helping the children work on a craft project, I stepped outside for a break on a cool and breezy day. Beautiful white clouds were scudding across the sky, behind wind-blown eucalyptus trees. Enjoying this version of "God’s voice," I stood outside the door in silent reverie, even as the noise of children having fun wafted through the open door. Quietly, ten-year-old Adryan walked outside, and stood next to me, looking first in the direction of my gaze, then up at me. "Bishop, are you listening to the music?" he asked. I smiled in joy and amazement.

"Yes, Adryan," I replied, "that’s exactly what I’m doing." It seems that he had quickly grasped the concept of "listening to the music" – tuning in to God’s voice, seeing His hand in the world around us, seeing the Word of our Lord written in the ever-changing Book of Nature. And I thought of Christ’s reminder that we have much to learn from our children about the ways of God, in Mark 10-15: "Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it."

"Out of the mouths of babes," as the Bible says, or in this case, out of the mouth of a ten-year-old. Now tell me – how would you have answered Adryan’s simple and inspiring question? Are you listening to the music, too?