When I was a child, seven and eight years old, God used to talk to me.  He didn’t have a big, booming voice like is so often portrayed in the movies.  He did have a male voice, so I use the pronoun “he” without hesitation, but it was a calm, almost soothing voice.  He spoke to me when I was most upset, when I most needed to be calmed and soothed.  It wasn’t just the voice (God’s voice was, as I said, almost soothing).  It was what he said, and how he said it.

God spoke to me mostly after disputes with others: family, teachers, or other children.  For years, God’s voice seemed entirely fair to me.  In a calm, reasoned voice, an adult voice that I could trust, God told me, without malice or ill will, and without apparent bias, that I was right.  Yes, in those years, God was always on my side.

Whether I’d been reprimanded by a teacher or teased on the playground; whether I’d fought with my little sister or been scolded by one or both parents; God was always there, ready to speak the moment I retreated to solitude.  In calm, patient, measured tones, God would tell me I was right, and my temper would be soothed, even if resentment lingered.

I don’t remember exactly when I started to question this voice as the voice of God.  But, when I was nine years old, I started to realize that God spoke mainly in my own words.  It would make sense for God to use only words I knew – God wanted to communicate with me, after all, and knew everything about what I knew – but he also tended to use my own style, and there was really no reason for him to do that.

Then, to use a recently-popular political phrase, God flip-flopped.  If my opinion on a dispute changed, so did God’s – or so did the voice’s.  Every once in a while, I’d realize I’d been wrong, and the voice would get right on board with me, while still defending my character.  Then, I began to notice that the voice would often echo my thoughts, sometimes word for word.  My faith in the voice unraveled quickly after that.

One day, when I was nine years old, sitting in my bedroom, I made the voice sing Mary Had a Little Lamb.  He didn’t want to.  I had to force every word.  But there was no doubt that this was the same voice, the one that had confirmed my correctness countless times in countless disputes, singing:

Mary had a little lamb.
His fleece was white as snow.
And everywhere that Mary went
The lamb was sure to go.

I stopped after the first verse.  It was enough.  The voice never spoke to me again.  The silencing of that voice never had a big effect on my faith in God.  In the next few years, my faith would become stronger and more comforting than at any other time in my life.  But I never had a direct line to God again – at least not to his voice.

In recent years, I’ve wondered if I shut off something valuable, a connection to my inner self, maybe even a bit of God within me just learning how to express itself, but I don’t really think so.  It may have been a crutch my self esteem needed at some point, but I think I dispensed with it at about the right time.  I don’t think there was ever much substance to it.  It didn’t increase my awareness of myself or of others.  It just calmed, soothed, and, to a point, kept me entrenched in my own opinions.

That voice is something I never forgot, for whatever reason.  I don’t think I was really hallucinating – it was rarely much louder than a thought.  I never believed that my ears were directly involved in hearing the voice.  Though some would dispute it (I’m still very good at arguing, and occasionally, very occasionally, show a slight stubborn streak), I do think that silencing the voice when I did taught me to question my own views on things, to realize that my current perspective might not always be the most enlightened one.  I might not be perfect at remembering that, but it’s a start.

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