I don't like graffiti. My town moves quickly to paint over it, seeing it as a threat to public order and a criminal attack upon public or private property. I agree with that position.
Yet I am often struck by the messages someone has felt compelled to write. Speech in the visual mode. Words screamed out in huge swirls of spray paint, often angry, sometimes profane. But those words are someone's attempt to communicate to the wider world, to express their pain, their confusion, their anger in a way we can't ignore. I find myself stopping, staring, listening with my heart instead of my ears to what they've spoken with a can of paint.
Prayer can be like that--our needs and our fears and our pain bursting out in garbled words and broken phrases. No matter what we say, or how poorly we express it, God is listening. And God is speaking to us as well. Not in ALL CAPS RIGHT IN OUR FACES. But quietly. In our hearts. We need to listen as well as speak. Faith is a conversation.
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