magic in a voice

I have been listening to sermons from my old church in Chicago.

The instant I hear my old pastor's voice, I am transported back to that church. I am sitting in the middle section, ten rows back, where I sat surrounded by trusted friends. I see prayer ministers with white robes and kind smiles (and one in particular's fearsome eyebrows -- like giant mustaches). I hear E., my dear friend, chewing gum, see her huge rhinestone celebrity shades perched atop her head. She whispers that she'll give me ten bucks if I dance in the aisle. And we giggle, like middle schoolers.

And I remember how I came to know, there in that holy place, that God was my shield, that he wept with me when I wept, and that his fingers were working in my heart, and that he wanted to take my burdens, and that I could set my compass on him, even as my hands shook, even though the woods seemed so dark.

And that he had made us each so different, but that through his sacrifice, he had made possible the sharing of trust and meaning.

One word. I am transported back, and washed over in God's faithfulness. It's as real as a good friend's hug, or the shafts of light flickering on the altar, or the communion wine's burning on the way down.

To lend credence to this post, to clean up this "spontaneous overflow of emotion," I should probably whip out my Walter Ong right now. Or my Marshall McLuhan. I could talk about the medium and the message, the transformative, communal power of sound, as opposed to the individulastic sterility of the written word. But I don't want to, somehow ...