The Sound of Listening
There's a funny thing about Dutch people. We don't talk when we eat. Something I didn't know until I was gone from home and some other Dutch person named it, and then I knew it had been true, with five older siblings and two hired hands at every meal, there had only been quiet at our table while we ate.
It was I, they tell me, who filled the silence at the table. Until about the time I went to first grade, and then, perhaps it was the volume of the world that stunned me into silence. So much to listen to. And then I, too, learned the sound of it.
I learned my father's voice, achingly sweet, like the sound of a handful of marbles held tightly in your hand and crushed together, the kind of sound that makes my throat hurt with the richness trapped inside of it, like the ribbons of color suspended inside those marbles. I've been trying all of my life to describe my father's voice, and all of the years I have to listen will not be enough to get it right.
It was the sound that started every meal, the sound of my father's voice praying. And then the sound of listening while we ate. What did it sound like? Like a gift. Like warm mashed potatoes and gravy, and dessert at every meal. Like my mother's white cotton blouses and the smell of sheets hung on the line. Like something to sink into.
And at the end of the meal we took turns reading the devotional and Bible verses in the book we picked up every month from the table in the back of church. Even I took my turn as soon as I could read and it was the last thing we heard before we got up and the boys went out to the barn where they whistled along with the radio while they milked the cows and the girls chattered silly things while we washed and dried the dishes.
This quiet, this funny gift we learned, this offering, left many things unsaid. Perhaps a few of the good things, but mostly just the bad. And we measured every sound, like we measured the humor of my father's jokes by the length of time he smiled before he began to tell them, careful because we knew how important every word could be when most of what we say is silent.
It is the center, the quiet home, a gift I can give, and the place to hear the voice of God, this sound of listening, this peace. And I will spend all of the years of listening I have to get it right.
It was I, they tell me, who filled the silence at the table. Until about the time I went to first grade, and then, perhaps it was the volume of the world that stunned me into silence. So much to listen to. And then I, too, learned the sound of it.
I learned my father's voice, achingly sweet, like the sound of a handful of marbles held tightly in your hand and crushed together, the kind of sound that makes my throat hurt with the richness trapped inside of it, like the ribbons of color suspended inside those marbles. I've been trying all of my life to describe my father's voice, and all of the years I have to listen will not be enough to get it right.
It was the sound that started every meal, the sound of my father's voice praying. And then the sound of listening while we ate. What did it sound like? Like a gift. Like warm mashed potatoes and gravy, and dessert at every meal. Like my mother's white cotton blouses and the smell of sheets hung on the line. Like something to sink into.
And at the end of the meal we took turns reading the devotional and Bible verses in the book we picked up every month from the table in the back of church. Even I took my turn as soon as I could read and it was the last thing we heard before we got up and the boys went out to the barn where they whistled along with the radio while they milked the cows and the girls chattered silly things while we washed and dried the dishes.
This quiet, this funny gift we learned, this offering, left many things unsaid. Perhaps a few of the good things, but mostly just the bad. And we measured every sound, like we measured the humor of my father's jokes by the length of time he smiled before he began to tell them, careful because we knew how important every word could be when most of what we say is silent.
It is the center, the quiet home, a gift I can give, and the place to hear the voice of God, this sound of listening, this peace. And I will spend all of the years of listening I have to get it right.
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