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Topic:  My mother once told me……

 

If my mother told me once, she told me a million times, “Tone it down, Diana Lynn, tone it down.”  Now in mother talk, that is interpreted to mean that you are talking way too loudly, so quite your voice.  I have since learned that tone is more that volume, but even though I reached adulthood and parenthood myself before she passed away, I never thought to ask her if she was referring only to the loudness or if she was also talking about the inflection of my voice. 

 

So, where does that leave me today—with the realization that I am loud.  I am a loud person.  I talk loudly.  I laugh loudly.  I walk loudly.  I dress loudly.  I exist and live loudly.  I am not a wallflower shrinking into the background.  I am up front, out in the open, ready and willing to take center stage.  I listen to people with soft voices like Kathy, and am jealous. The pleasant quietness of her voice carrries, but doesn’t grate on the ears and nerves like my voice does.  I’m the person at church, when we have those fellowship dinners and showers, or the one in Faculty Senate, that people look to and say, “Diana, tell them all we’re ready to start.”

 

God gives us all talents, some of them are easily seen, mine is easily heard. 

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