Speakerphone | The Walrus

"To pray, not to ask, but to have the line open. To listen to the almost silence on the other end, to know your almost silence is being listened to as well (distant cars, clicks of a keyboard, a child laughing), to know your listening is being listened to (both sides on speakerphone, no one speaking) as you go about your respective days, tiresome appointments, dark highways."

"The sounds from either side coming through that narrow frequency range, the crackle and the hiss of this world, of that world. And OK, maybe a few words from you at the end of a hard day, a few words from the voice you haven't used: your secret voice, always a bit tired, lightly grazing your throat, barely language."

"You don't even know if it is coming from you or from the other side, the way when the leaves rustle we don't know if it's the wind or the tree that is speaking."

Prayer becomes keeping a line open, a practice of listening rather than asking. Almost-silences on both ends coexist with distant domestic sounds—cars, keyboard clicks, a child's laugh—forming a shared, low-frequency presence. Each person's listening is being listened to, like both sides on speakerphone with no one speaking, while daily routines continue: appointments, long drives, weariness. Sounds pass through a narrow frequency band, carrying crackle and hiss from one world to another. Occasionally a few tired, barely-linguistic words surface from a secret voice. The origin of those words remains ambiguous, like rustling leaves where wind and tree seem to speak simultaneously.

Read at The Walrus