The famous poet W. H. Auden, once, in his older years, read some of his poetry at Princeton. The hall was packed with hundreds of students and faculty. They had come to hear "the great one." But when Auden (then an old man) began to read, his voice was so soft that even the microphone couldn't pick him up. So people began whispering to their neighbor: "What did he say?" And those who thought they had heard a part of what he'd said, whispered back the part they'd heard - or what they remembered from a prior reading of Auden, triggered (in that moment) by what they thought they'd heard. While others, not quite hearing - and not quite knowing -  guessed at what he was saying. And pretty soon, the whispers drowned out the poet. 

Which, if you ask me, is what sometimes happens in our churches, else why would there be so much interest in the word of God, yet so little clarity about the word of God? Unless, of course, we all whisper better than we listen. 

Sometimes I wish God would scream. Or shout. At least raise his voice. Getting in my face, as it were. As to why God doesn't, I have no answer. I wish I did.  What I do know is what I just read. That God came to the world (with the barest hint of a whisper) in the form of a child. A speechless child.