An experience of hearing a guiding voice, shared by Viv Hawkins
I was finding my job extremely difficult. I loved the mission of the organization with which I worked. The workplace setting, commute, and benefits were all pretty good. Given those factors, the compensation was acceptable. I valued almost every one of my colleagues.
And then there was my supervisor – a new director with a penchant for micromanaging and a tendency to undervalue his direct reports. He had hired a fantastic staff for our start-up office. But, one-by-one, we were walking away from work to which we were devoted because it felt our wings were continually being clipped.
I carried my distress to Quaker worship one Sunday and, during the mostly-silent waiting worship practiced by unprogrammed Friends, wrestled with what to do career-wise. I was at a loss, having tried repeatedly to talk with my supervisor and feeling no change. Do you know that sense when everything you know to do leaves you unresolved?
Sometimes for me that state of extreme frustration carries me through a desperate search, into a place of lamentation, and leads to an ultimate surrender. A giving over more than a giving up. A willingness to release whatever I think I know to something greater. A feeling reminiscent of Jesus’ words, “Into your hands I commit my spirit,” his last words on the cross.
That was the journey I underwent that Sunday during worship.
And the words that I heard in response were few but clear, as if whispered into my ear, “Look here.”
Despite the fact of hearing such a voice being a new, unexplainable experience for me, I felt the calm that comes with a release of pent-up emotion and received the guidance as some form of divine instruction.
Leaving the worship space soon afterward, when those present moved to the social room for refreshments, I found myself standing at a table of printed announcements. The top sheet was a job description for a position for which I subsequently applied, was hired, and in which I served for the next five years.
Twenty-five years later, I do not know the source of that voice. But, if we define “mystical experience” as Lola does as “an intangible aspect of life,” this was surely one.
Post-script:
Were I still as connected to scripture and/ or less doubting than the Apostle Thomas, I might close with a later portion of that psalm begun by Jesus: “Yet you heard my cry for mercy/ when I called to you for help.” Perhaps, that closing works for you?
mystical friend 