Don't forget to contact Bill and let him know the details of your CLC's service this semester.

The din undoes us

Walter Brueggemann

Our lives are occupied territory . . .

            occupied by a cacophony of voices,

            and the din undoes us.

In the daytime we have no time to listen,

            beset as we are by anxiety and goals

                        and assignments and work,

            and in the night the voices are so confusing

            we can hardly sort out what could possibly be your voice

            from the voice of our mothers and our fathers

            and our best friends and our pet projects,

            because they all sound so much like you.

We are people over whom the word shema has been written.

We are listeners, but we do not listen well.

So we bid you, by the time the sun goes down today

            or by the time the sun comes up tomorrow,

            by night or by day,

            that you will speak in ways that we can hear

                        out beyond ourselves.

It is your speech to us that carries us where we have never been,

            and it is your speech to us that is our only hope.

So give us ears. Amen.