Voices

They line their hats with tin foil.

To block the voices that try to invade their heads.

The tin foil hat has become a symbol of the paranoid.

Those who think the government or some evil force 
Is trying to control them.

Trying to transmit messages into their brains.

Or to read their thoughts.

When I worked for the courts, I’d see cases filed by some of these folks.

Asking the court to order the mind controllers to stop.

We all hear voices in our heads.

Voices that aren’t distinct speech entering through the ears.

But thoughts and ideas and beliefs that are triggered from within.

Drawn out from wherever we’ve stored them.

Perhaps first planted there by a speaking voice.

Or a written voice.

Or an observed voice.

Or some innate store of knowledge and wisdom.

Unlike the paranoid,

Most of us can usually figure out where that voice is coming from.

We just need to spend some time analyzing it.

My sheep hear my voice;

I know them, and they follow me.

No one can take them out of my hand.

That’s about half of today’s brief Gospel passage.

Words from Jesus.

But others could easily use those words today.

In a cynical, sinister way.

Those claims could be made by the media stars.

Who stoke hate and fear and division through their radio and TV shows.

And through their tweets and blogs and anti-social social media posts.

Their listeners do hear their voice.

And the speakers do know their listeners—all too well.

They’ve studied the demographics.

They’ve market tested their messages to see what sells best.

They know what those listeners expect to hear.

More of what the voice has conditioned them to believe.

And their brainwashed listeners do follow that voice—like sheep.

And the voice has good reason to believe 
That no one can take those followers away.

They’ve been locked in by anger or fear.

Of course, these speakers are free to say what they want.

They can preach division and polarization.

They can come at us from left and right.

They can rail against immigrants and political or economic refugees.

They can put grossly exaggerated labels on disagreements.
To try to convince us that others are victimizing us.

We're victims of the War on Women and the War on Coal.

They can encourage disdain and hate 
And even violence toward those others.

But no one has to listen.

We may have to hear the words.

Directly from the original voices, or echoed from their followers.

Tin foil hats won’t keep the poisonous voices out.

They get in.

But we control what we do with every voice that comes in.

What we do with the message it delivers.

We can add it to our store of truth.

Our beliefs, our wisdom, guidance and knowledge.

Or we can store it as a question. 
Or an idea deserving further consideration.

Or we can store it as untruth.

Added knowledge of the error and foolishness in this world.

There are a lot of voices out there in the world today.

We’re constantly bombarded with messages.

And we have to choose which ones we listen to.

Which ones we follow.

It’s true that many of those voices could claim half of today’s Gospel.

Being heard, knowing their listeners, and having a grip on them.

But there’s only one who can claim the other half.

That’s the voice we can measure all the other voices against.

The one voice we want to follow always.

The one voice that can say in truth:

I give them eternal life and they shall never perish.

My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all,

And no one can take them out of the Father’s hand.

The Father and I are one.

4th Sunday of Easter

Jn 10:27-30   Read this Scripture @usccb.org