Its always been this way for me, this ongoing search for “self”,
looking for the answer to that nagging question “Who Am I?”…
It used to be a burden, something that seemed to make me ‘different’ and ‘separate from’,
but now it’s just the path.
Recently, in the face of the confrontations presented in life and love, something keeps coming up related to my speaking in these important moments, something about “my voice” in challenging events and times.

And now, in that spiraling journey toward my Being, toward that Self, I wonder if anything can be more indicative like a dowsing rod,
more directional like having a map to the buried treasure,
more secure like a toe and hand hold to continue the climb toward our true nature
than discovering my ‘voice’?

I don’t think so… its shown itself to be search in and of it’s own.
A search where the clues are given by the degrees of confidence in some core and personal truth expressed in adversity.
When we open our mouths, what does come out?
Isn’t it the most disturbing thing as you start to enter adulthood and onto relationship, kids, career… to find something your parents said to you coming out?
Especially since most of the time when I was younger I took exception to those very words.
Do you, like me, choke when you hear yourself say some version of “stop your crying, or I’ll give you something to cry about…”

Doesn’t it make you stop and wonder “who the hell am I?” 
Am I really me, or am I some version of my father here. Joe Grady.

Does that still happen for you?  I hope you too haven’t become ‘old’ enough that you stopped noticing, stopped caring, stopped wondering…

And I won’t even go into all those behaviors and attitudes I seem to have inherited like cast off or hand-me-down clothes that I am covered over in – items that I don’t even notice.
Thank god that sometimes life is kind enough (in it’s harsh way) to point it out and ask “what the hell are you wearing THAT for?”
Those trashy little items like racism, sexism, ageism, being right-ism, self centered-ism, etc. that fit me so well, skin tight really, that I don’t even notice I’m wearing them.

We love American Idol.
Mostly for the humor in it.
The many contestants that open their mouths and let it rip.
Seemingly unaware that what is coming out is AWFUL!
Like “Stop! Please Stop!” awful.
We laugh, we howl, we cry…
The show is safer for us, arms length… someone else gets up there, not us.
Their performance is out front, not ours.
The judges critique them, not us.

But when you open your mouth, what does come out?
If we ask you to stand up right now and sing us all a song
maybe “Streets of Philadelphia”?
What will come out?
Will you know the words?
Will you hit the notes?
Will you be off key, off tone…
Or will you hit it, will you nail it?

And if you hit it, is it just thru control over the words and delivery?
Or have you done the work,
You know… “the work”…
where you go digging in the dirt and see what’s there.

Have you actually found your voice, found your instrument, learned how to play it.
Or at least are still willing to look for your voice, your instrument
And practice with it.

In the songs in the key of life, do you sing with your voice?
Or somebody’s on TV?