A Voice Is Something to Follow

So many voices . . . but there's one that goes deepest. Listen.

I’m sometimes annoyed and overwhelmed by voices. I don’t mean the way they sound; I just mean their number. There are so many voices asking to be heard. There are voices of institutions and companies: that text I keep getting from a local republican candidate, the social media post about LGBTQ+ celebration, the Nike running shoe ad that keeps popping up when I’m trying to read an article. Then there are voices of influencers: the tweet from Patricia Heaton complaining about Tim Allen not being cast as Buzz Lightyear in the latest Toy Story movie; the post about the latest Christian living book I just have to read; the prominent economist talking about how bad inflation is going to get. And then there are the voices of people in your life, the “real” voices, which seem to compete with all the others. But, thank God, those real voices call us back to the present, to the concrete world of hot coffee and melted butter, to the deep red Japanese maple leaves resting like watchmen over our mid-June lawn, to the smell of the summer grass I just cut. But, more than all this, to the relationships that make all of these details relevant and meaningful. The real voices . . . they ground us. They stitch us like patchwork into the fabric of the day.