Quiet My Voice

A blessing for motor mouths like me

I don’t know much about how anything works. But there is one thing I feel pretty certain about:

We reveal who we are to the world by how sincerely we listen to others tell their stories. So many of us talk at once, it feels like we’re living inside a jet engine.

I never stop moving my lips. I am a very large brick in this planet-sized wall of noise. I have to learn how to press my mute button.

My prayer life has been pretty sparse over the past few years. It’s mostly because I am not exactly sure who I am offering them to. But…as I wrote this prayer as sat in my own discomfort.

I spoke it out loud and felt better. Maybe else nobody heard it. Maybe that doesn’t matter. I heard. Because once I spoke the following words…I felt better than I had in a long time.

Quiet my voice

Open my heart

Soften my ears

Listen

Listen

Listen

~ Give space for others

~ Offer the gift of my silence

~ Volunteer my soul to be a campfire

I have so much to say but let me learn to listen first. Maybe the birds are already singing about what I want to say about daybreak. Perhaps the laughter of children has already become the poem I wanted to write.

I don’t want to be a part of the noise machine anymore. I want to be a servant of the stillness. I want to tie my tongue with ribbon that I only loosen when I have something that will be medicine for another.

To be a listener in this world of loud talkers is an act of rebellion. Let me find the courage to rebel against my pride.

Oh Endless Love, teach me how to stop needing to be heard. And show me how to be brave enough to receive the stories of this world.

I want to be brave enough to step onto the ledge of someone else’s heart and to patiently listen to how the sacred wind howls their story through their canyon walls.

Quiet my voice

Open my heart

Soften my ears

Listen

Listen

Listen

(from “wonderache”)

(Photo credit: Mike Shubric)

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Come Write With Me In FRANCE Next Summer!!

Like I have mentioned before, I came to writing poetry sideways.

No MFA degree, no training, no plan. Just years of doing comedy and improv on dim stages and in the back of bars, learning how to say the true thing before I had time to talk myself out of it.

Nine books later I still half expect somebody to check my license to make sure I’m qualified.

Which makes this next section really crazy:

Next July I’m teaching a writing retreat at a 19th century manor house at the foot of the French Pyrenees, which is not a sentence I ever pictured myself typing.

I’d love for you to come with me.

The place is called Atelier Clos Mirabel Vineyards out the window. Dinners that run four courses and take the evening. A village at the bottom of the hill where lunch lasts two hours because nobody there has ever once been in a hurry.

Notice how I keep coming back to food..?🫣🤠

We will talk writing in the mornings. Afternoons you disappear into the gardens with a notebook, or you sit with me one on one and we finally talk about the thing you’ve been circling for years. One day we take our notebooks out into the foothills.

One day is entirely yours.

On the last night we gather for a coffeehouse reading. You’re invited to share. You are never required to. That rule holds all week.

Here’s what someone wrote me after a retreat last month:

“I learned so much and was very inspired to write more. John is an awesome teacher and person. He has so much to share and give, He is a true talent!”

You don’t have to be a writer. You don’t have to have published anything, finished anything, or even started anything. You just need to show up carrying something that’s been waiting a long time to be said out loud.

I want to be upfront that this is an investment. But it’s also eleven months away, which is plenty of time to save, to plan, or to just let the idea sit with you and see if it keeps coming back.

July 17 to 24, 2027. Jurançon, France.

Small group so it fills up fast.

Booking details are in the comments.

And if you’re not ready to decide today, just send me a message or a comment I’ll make sure you get the reminders sent to you over the next month or so.

For other events I am being invited to please follow this link:

To reach out to me for bookings please email me at john@johnroedel.com