Zechariah...

I said a while ago that one of the lessons of the Advent story of Zechariah is that when God speaks and we choose not to listen, God does not stop speaking. But sometimes, He takes away our ability to speak- and then all we can do is listen.

I'm meditating on this now because it occured to me two nights ago as I lay on the couch at 1:30, 2:30 at night, trying to get back to sleep after waking up and fleeing the crying Baby Jane, that maybe this is where I'm at.

I find myself getting quieter and quieter over the last few months.

What I mean by that is, there are good productive conversations and there are conversations that never get past the surface, and I've been having fewer and fewer of the former and more and more of the latter, and it's driving me absolutely nuts.

I think a big part of it is simply weariness- just baby/toddler tired... but how long can I keep playing that song?

Is it laziness? Is it just that being completely present to others and doing the hard conversational work that actually gets you somewhere, praying before, during and after meetings/conversations/coffees is simply too much work to sustain for very long?

Or is there something deeper happening?

I honestly don't know.

But I do know this- I know where the energy I do have needs to go...
It needs to go into listening hard to God and listening well to others...

And maybe if I do that, I'll find sooner or later that God has given me something worth saying again.