listen

"Now is the time to say what you have to say.
The room is quiet,
The whirring fan has been unplugged,
and the girl who was tapping
a pencil on her desktop has been removed....

...the trains are motionless on the tracks,
the ships at rest in the harbor.
The dogs are cocking their heads
and the gods are peering down from their balloons....
and even Beethoven
is sitting up in his deathbed,
his cold hearing-horn inserted in one ear."

[bits and pieces from Billy Collins' poem Silence]

He looks a little intimidating.
I'm not sure I feel like speaking anymore.

I read through Facebook, Twitter, any of the Internet really...
and I see a billion people wanting to be seen and heard: 

See me.
Hear me.
Understand me.
Know me.
My outside does not match my inside, and it's killing me that no one realizes it.
There's more to me than anyone knows.

I'm not criticizing.  I get it.  I'm the loudest and the neediest.
And that's okay.
We were made to be known.
The need drives us toward one another, and I'm glad.

The need drives us toward something and someone larger than ourselves.
That is the reason he made us.
The only reason.
Why do we think he has so many rules and hidden agenda?
Why are tracts so long?
Just come.
Be known.
Be liked.