I’ve been sick the last few days, curled up on the couch with chills, cough drops, and shivering away all my good intentions. I’m on the mend, now. But, man, when it rains it always seems to pour, doesn’t it?
I’d hoped to bring more of myself to share here to today. Dreamed of spinning sentences and telling all that is my interior world. For now, though, I’ll just seep out this one thought that I can’t seem to escape.
Is there anything more empowering than using one’s own voice?
While my voice waned over the weekend, something not all too unfamiliar to me, I found myself thinking about both the force and the fragility of our voices. How is it that we can speak with strength in one instance and yet be given over to our voice waning weak in another?
I used to use my voice in so many other ways than just writing.
In a Lent devotional that I recently shared at She Reads Truth, I wrote about how I used to lead worship. I used to speak and teach. For the last few years, though, it feels as though I’ve been in a sort of silent season. I’ve been speaking with and through my writing, yes, but I’ve been silent when it comes to my actual, physical voice.
A lot of this has been because of sickness and endless struggles with my throat and (as of recently) my thyroid. And, I admit, some of this has been because of an ingrained fear that I hold over the fragility of my voice, all those years of resolving that my feeble physical voice was unreliable.
A part of it has truthfully also been because of the trajectory of my life. My writing life has been flourishing. Seeds I planted decades ago, poems scribbled away in private notebooks, have finally been flourishing, and I’ve wanted to be fully present to enjoy their presence. To prune them, even to pluck them and share them with others to enjoy.
I think, though, that deep under the surface I’ve also always wondered about the force of my voice. Wondered if and how I might ever speak strongly even in the midst of sickness and struggle and all that that stifles.
What would it mean to show up in the midst of weakness, not even for the sake of striving, but for the sake of survival? Speaking up and using my voice because to do otherwise would leave me passive and living without passion?
That’s powerful.
Am I that powerful?
I write all of this knowing full well that I will wake up before the sun tomorrow to narrate and record another five episodes of an expertly produced podcast. A few short weeks ago, I was asked to be the new voice for the (in)courage podcast, following in the footsteps of my dear friend, Grace P. Cho.
In the last few weeks, I’ve asked myself one hundred and one million questions. How did the possibility of this opportunity fall into my lap? and Why me? How will I do this? What about my vulnerable voice? How? Who? Where? When? What? Then circle it back to Why.
Yet, in my soul, I am reminded of words I, myself, penned and published not too long ago. Some of you might even be holding the book that holds these words bound in page and prayer.
And, there will never be enough time or courage or certainty to write out all you wonder about, to make art of all you sense and see. But there is faith. There is showing up, anyway. There is standing before the canvas, or the computer, or the clay even when you feel rushed and unsure, bruised and broken. Even while you are seeking and stumbling, fumbling to find your way through.
—Rachel Marie Kang, Let There Be Art (18)
It’s true.
There will never be enough courage. There will never be enough certainty, enough answers to satisfy that raging need to know. That How? and Why me? There is not enough time or ideal situations. Not all the training in the world. Not all the promise of a dream. There is only sitting before the computer, switching the microphone from standby to on, and speaking out those words, those things, that art.
Doing otherwise would only leave you and I passive and living without passion.
And we’re too powerful for that, you and I.
I hope you use your voice this week.
What is one thing you keep wanting to try but find yourself hesitating or resisting to start? Have you feared your own force or fragility, or are there other things that have held you back?
Share with me in the comments — it’s fun getting to read thoughts other than my own : )
P.S. Tomorrow, the (in)courage podcast will release its first episode with me as the narrator. Be sure to subscribe (if you’re a podcast kind of person) so you don’t miss it : )
Heyo!! I’m excited about your podcast opportunity. Also, I legit began writing a song at the piano tonight. What! That’s my answer to your question.
Diagnosed with terminal cancer just before my birthday in December, 2022 shook me to the core. When I heard, from my trusted oncologist, that he didn’t think it had gone to my brain...I asked for an anti-anxiety medication and really didn’t hear what he said after that.
My birthday is always preceded with excitement and planning for the coming year with joy. Instead I found myself in a hospital in intensive care.
I’ve adjusted rather haphazardly to the realities of my truncated life. I’m starting a blog called The Terminal. The readership I’m aiming at are cancer patients like me, the elderly and those with chronic and incurable medical diagnoses as well as some disable people whose medical problems will not change for the better. I hope that if I live to my next birthday(I’ll be 81 a week before next Christmas) I will have been a source of comfort, compassion and understanding to my readers.