This portion always reminds me that we must have courage and faith when faced with difficulties of any sort. When we think no solution exists, when we feel we are up against the wall (of water), we must simply move forward anyway. We must have the courage and the faith to take a step. And we must listen for God’s voice telling us what to do. Then we must act upon what we hear.

This year, I’m more aware of this lesson than ever before. I realize that I am always surrounded by guidance and tapped into my Source, I just need to allow myself to “hear” what God has to say. I must always have my eyes open to see the signs. Like Moses, I can hear God’s voice speaking to me if I choose to listen. Like the prophets, I can receive messages if I choose to listen. I don’t have to “go it alone.”

This Shabbat this year, however, I’m thinking of a time prior to the Red Sea incident as well. I’m thinking about Moses at the burning bush.

Most of us believe we can’t hear God’s voice, we don’t have guidance or guides and we aren’t “special enough” to receive messages from Source. We don’t have faith. And, therefore, we don’t have courage. Moses, however, had faith in God…and courage enough to walk up the burning bush. This placed him on holy ground.There, he heard God’s voice for the first time. He experienced God. And he trusted and had faith and followed the command of that voice.

In fact, just like Moses, we stand on holy ground much of the time. Like Jacob, who dreamt of the angels going up and down the ladder to heaven in Genesis (28:11–19) and then awoke to say, “God was in this place, and I, I did not know,” we could say those same words on any given day or at any given time. We must awaken to the fact that we are always on holy ground (or could be)–we just must have the courage to open our eyes to see God and open our ears to hear the messages that come from Source and from the angels and guides around us.

Do you want to hear God’s voice? Do you want to hear the Still Small Voice–call it intuition, Source, God, guides…whatever you like (it could be all of these or any of these). Are you courageous enough to listen? Are you courageous enough to act upon what you hear?  Do you have faith to believe that what your hear (or see) is something other than you?

Why not ask God to speak to you? Why not go looking for signs of God in your life? Why not sit quietly and ask for a message from Source or from your guides. And then, have the courage and the faith to move forward, to walk into the water if need be.

When everyone in the house has gone to bed, a peace fall over the house. Even though I’m home alone during the day, the birds and squirrels keep me company with their constant chatter. At night, they, too are silent, except for an occasional horned owl. Since I’m on the West Coast, my email box also stops filling with new mail in the early morning, because the rest of the people around the United States have long ago gone to bed as well. The only people still awake seem to be on FaceBook and Twitter. 

Sometimes, if I want some company…or I just want to procrastinate…I go to Twitter, where I find a few cyber friends with whom to interact. In the darkness of my office, with just the light over my desk, I send out little messages across time and space. It’s an odd connection, but it makes me smile more often than not.

And then I go back to my writing…maybe a blog post or a piece for my San Jose Jewish Examiner.com column. Sometimes it’s an article for a dance magazine or a trade journal. Sometimes, if I’m lucky, it’s a piece on something close to my heart. Or possibly I’m just knocking out a project that I need to complete.

In the quiet of the early morning, I can finally focus. The house is quiet. The world is quiet. My mind is quiet. Well, the last may not be quiet true. My mind is filled with words, but I can finally hear them.

If I take a few minutes just to sit quietly, I can hear other things: my breath, the cat climbing onto the clean clothes in the living room (where she isn’t allowed to sleep), the fountain trickling behind me, the hum of the printer, the Still Small Voice. Ah…I remember that voice. 

That voice tells me to put aside the other projects and write from my heart. It tells me to finish my unfinished projects. It tells me to persevere. It tells me I’m on the right track. It tells me to slow down and listen.

And then it tells me to go to sleep. The rest can wait until morning…well, until I wake up.  The problem comes when I do slide into bed beside my sleeping (and snoring) husband, and I cannot sleep. My thoughts, my words, have become too loud. In the quiet of the morning, they have become amplified, and it takes a long time for me to find a way to turn down the volume and sleep. If only I could find a program that would type all those words into my computer for me as I lay there in bed and as I slept. Oh, the writing I could accomplish.

But would it record the Still Small Voice as well? Or can we only hear that when we are awake, when we are conscious? I think, somehow, the sound of that voice might not be picked up by even the best microphone.

Now, again, it whispers to me…