Singer, Song, and Responder

It is spring, a cool spring but spring all the same.  The trees have put out their flowers and/or leaves, and the birds have returned.  One recent morning, listening to a bird singing, I had a little epiphany.  That bird's brain and vocal apparatus evolved so it could sing this particular song to ears that evolved to hear it and a brain shaped to respond to it.

The song shaped both singer and listener and both singer and listener shaped the song.  The singer could not have sung a song that did not fit the shape of its throat or the sound of its voice.  A song the other could not receive or respond to would not have been sung for long.  There was a co-evolution of those three entities- singer, song, and responder.

I have been thinking about this in relation to my sense of calling, which has changed a great deal since I first heard it, as a child.  At first it just confused me because I grew up in a religion where, as female, I could not respond to it.

Many years later, after finding a religion where I could respond to that call, I heard that song again.  Had Spirit been singing it all along?  Had I stopped listening, tuning it out because of my inability to respond, or had the song stopped altogether?  Had the song changed so I could hear it, or had my situation changed to allow me to perceive it?   Both?  Sometimes I think too much and it makes my head hurt.

When it first came back my calling niggled at me - and I tried to resist it.  After all, I'd been pursuing a career as an academic for years - all those years in graduate school.  I didn't want to jettison all that effort and time.   Gradually it grew louder, or so it seemed - more insistent, harder to resist.

The first time I stood in the pulpit to share a sermon with my minister it was clear as clear, "This is what I was meant to do with my life."  My call came from and to the pulpit.  At that point it felt like there was no choice but to respond.  It was like an instinct, as irresistible to me then as singing that song was to that bird this spring.  Within a month I was filling out applications to seminary.

Looking back after eight years of experience, it feels like my calling has been tuning me, all along.  Both that song and its mysterious singer have pushed, pulled and coaxed me to change substantially as a person and as a minister.  They have tuned me to serve as I do, which changes at least some of those I serve, who in turn change me.  My sense of the source of my call has also changed.  Is it possible that Singer changes too?  I believe it does.  There are layers to this, strata that I suppose are like harmonies, to stretch the metaphor a bit further.  The song is complex.

Maybe we only hear parts of it at different points in our lives.  Maybe we will never hear the whole thing.  Maybe that doesn't matter, given that what we do hear can be this beautiful, this difficult, this challenging, this amazing.  Maybe what matters is hearing what we can hear, and responding as best we can in the moment, knowing that our response may change us enough to hear another part of song.

Much has been happening beneath the surface of my life in recent months.  I have not posted a great deal lately because it is taking a while for it all to rise to the surface.  That requires periods of less busy-ness (which I have not had) and time alone for me. As an introvert, I need solitude to hear, feel, realize.  When you listen, what do you hear?  Is that different from what it used to be?  Has your voice changed over time?