Maybe it's the noise of our world that makes I Kings 19 so appealing, or maybe it's the power of the story itself.  I just know that whenever I read it, I find myself lingering over verse 12.  You know how the story goes, don't you?  The great and powerful prophet Elijah is all alone and on the run from highly perturbed royalty that has vowed to see him dead within a day.  You and I would probably flee, too.  Scared out of his wits and suddenly rethinking this whole "prophet of God" job that he has taken on, Elijah needs a word from the God whose call has gotten him into this mess to begin with.

God directs him to the holy Mt. Horeb, and there the prophet waits for some wondrous revelation that will make sense of the chaos, for some word from God that will restore his confidence and his courage.

Then comes the wind, powerful enough to tear mountains apart.  Impressive, but not God.

Then the earthquake.  Not God.

Then the fire, but still no sign of God.

And then come the words we all remember.  After all the noise and commotion there follows "a still small voice" (KJV, RSV) or "the sound of sheer silence" (NRSV) or, as the NIV puts it "a gentle whisper."  And, sure enough, it is God, reassuring, reminding, redirecting the wavering Elijah.

Today the news tells us all we need to know of great winds and earthquakes, literal and cosmic.  And in today's political environment, there is shouting aplenty.  But have you heard the gentle whisper lately?

The truth of the matter is our calling revolves around that whisper.  We are the people who listen for the still small voice amid all the noise and clamor of an angry world.  It is easy to get fooled, to mistake explosions for a voice or to think that truth is measured in decibels.  But in it all, if we will only listen, God whispers still.

Certainly, love can be shouted, and sometimes surely our hearts would explode if we kept silent.  But more often, I think, we find love in quiet moments, in a gesture, in a glance, in a whispered "Here I am."   God's mystery comes to us, T.S. Eliot has said, "heard, half-heard, in the stillness between two waves of the sea."  Don't be distracted by the crashing of the water.

We are the people of the whisper.  The world shouts, but we know another voice.  Grace, it whispers.  Peace.  There is hope.  You are loved.