A Dialogue

I awoke suddenly in the middle of the night from a dream I could not remember.  I waited a moment studying the darkness until illumination from a streetlight helped me make sense of my surroundings.  I breathed deeply, beginning to relax as a sliver - just a flash from the dream that frightened me - came back to me.    I shivered, then heard myself speak aloud, “I miss You, God.” I said into the darkness. 

A long time ago when I was a child growing up, I believed that praying meant talking to God.  Later, as I started to grow old, I began meditating, believing that meditation meant listening to God.   But on this night, I realized I’d been doing too little of either - praying or meditating.  Perhaps because I believed I could no longer find God there.  

Alone in my room that night, I realized it was neither the talking nor the listening that I missed.  It was the dialogue.  But when did I ever have that? I wondered.  I had no idea.  But I must have had it once, I reasoned, or I would not be missing it now.  

What would the voice of God sound like? I wondered as I got up on my elbows to punch the pillow and turn it around.  Would the voice of God have a loud, echoing resonance that would haunt my dreams?  Or would it have the sweet, gentle timbre of a babbling brook?  Or would it come to me cognitively, without words?

“I miss You, God,” I spoke aloud again as I returned my head to the pillow.    

“I miss you, too,” He whispered so low I almost missed it.   

My memoir, Dear Elvis, is available at amzn.to/2uPSFtE