As a child, one of the moving experiences I had with my parents and brother was from the city of Zacatecas to the city of Torreón. A trip within Mexico of approximately five to six hours.
My parents had gone to Torreón in advance to look for what would be our new home.
Once we were in the new house, I don’t remember the move itself; that is, I don’t remember us moving in with the boxes and furniture. What I do remember is being inside with everything more or less in place. I remember almost nothing about the process of getting and settling in.
What I do remember are the first few nights when I tried to sleep. It wasn’t very easy. The reason? There were a series of sounds I didn’t know what they were. I wondered:
“How can the neighbors sleep with this weird noise?”
And then, on top of that, I heard my dad snoring so peacefully from his bedroom.
After a few days of having trouble sleeping, I remember asking my mom:
“Mom, what’s that noise at night?”
“What noise?”
“Well, I don’t know. It’s a very loud noise, but it doesn’t let me fall asleep quickly. Can’t you hear it?”
“Oh, my dear, I’m so tired at the end of the day that I don’t even notice. I barely hear your dad snoring… Tonight, when you start hearing it, let me know.”
“Okay, Mom.”
Since I was so surprised that my mom didn’t hear it, I started paying attention to what time the noise started. And I realized it started at dusk.
I immediately said to my mom:
“Mom, Mom, there’s the noise!”
“Ooohhh! My dear, those are the frogs in the equestrian center.”
“Hmmm, the frogs in the equestrian center?”
– Yes, my love, we’re half a block from there, and there’s a lot of open space. During the rainy season, like we are right now, the frogs come out and start singing at night.
– Really? Is more like an actual scream…
My mom was so tired every day from moving around, and finding a place for everything that she’d end up completely exhausted and hadn’t even noticed the frogs’ croaking. For me, it was like listening to an opera singer singing in my ear, hahaha. I couldn’t understand why she didn’t hear it.
Several years later, the opposite happened.
When I started my adult life and left home, I also moved to another city. Then, I also moved from one house to another.
The first house was very close to an airport, and also to some train tracks. But the airport was what we noticed the most. The sound of takeoff and landing was quite loud. Around the airport, they had installed panels to minimize the intense noise as much as possible.
As the months, and then the years passed, we grew accustomed to the sound that we “became deaf to it.” The sound was so familiar that we didn’t even notice it anymore. It wasn’t until my parents visited and mentioned it that we noticed it again.
And the scene repeated itself once more.
The next time we moved, we were still close to the airport, but now closer to the train tracks.
When my parents first visited us in this new little house, my mom was almost freaking out while falling asleep. It turns out that both passenger and freight trains pass along this route. And it was around 10 PM that one of the freight trains passed by.
My mom not only heard the noise of the train, but she also felt the strong vibration. The train was so loaded that it slightly shook the wooden frame of the house, and my mom thought it was shaking.
And the next day she was the one who said to me:
“Oh, my dear, how can you sleep with that noise?”
For us at home, having been here for a few months, we had already gotten used to it. But hearing it again from my mom reoriented my attention on these sounds and vibrations that hadn’t gone anywhere; I simply didn’t pay attention to them anymore.
And you, have you ever been so used to a sound, stimulus, or the presence of a loved one that you almost don’t even notice them anymore?
In Scripture, the psalmist tells us:
“If today you hear his voice, harden not your hearts.”
I’m not sure that anyone who feels loved by God wants or seeks to harden their heart (or want to ignore) God’s voice.
In my spiritual direction practice, this is precisely one of the areas that comes up most frequently: seeking to be sensitive to God’s voice.
When I heard the frogs like an opera singer serenading me, my mom couldn’t hear them because she was tired.
When I no longer heard the airplanes or the trains, it was because I was so used to them that even if I heard them, I didn’t notice them.
Is there something that perhaps prevents you from hearing the voice of God that is already there? Is it fatigue, habit, lack of attention, or willpower?
Do you hear and notice the voice of God in your surroundings?
If the Spirit leads you, share with Jesus the Carpenter if you can (and want) to hear the voice of God. And perhaps you would like to notice in more detail what is in your surroundings.
Marisol
P.S. We can hear about the invitation to notice God’s voice in the readings for the 27th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year/Cycle C.tar la voz de Dios en las lecturas del XXVII domingo del tiempo ordinario, año / ciclo C.
