Lessons from the Turtle Dove by Natasha Woodcraft
You know when you walk down by a river and hordes of ducks and geese are standing around, often fighting for a piece of bread being thrown by some poor, unsuspecting toddler. Don't they make a racket? The squawking and honking, chasing and biting, splashing and furious paddling below the surface. Yet, if you can tune your ears from the cacophony (to use one of my favourite words) you might still catch the gentle coo of a dove, or the trill of a songbird, high up in the treetops bordering the river.
I've been thinking about this lately as I navigate my own writing journey. I wonder if the book marketplace can feel a bit like this. "Buy my book" signs vying for our attention, tips for this and that, plotting strategies, marketing strategies, coaches and experts galore. Honking geese and quacking ducks. How do we tune our ears to hear the gentle coo of the dove among such noise?
R.T. Kendall in The Sensitivity of the Spirit raises some points about the turtle-dove (the species that likely alighted on Jesus at his baptism) that I haven't forgotten, even though I read the book ten years ago. Turtle doves are gentle and still, not boisterous and noisy like pigeons (and geese). They are faithful to one partner. They cannot be trained or domesticated, nor are they territorial. They are scared of humans and will take flight at the slightest provocation. He warns us about taking analogies too far, but also says, "This surely means we must respect the Spirit as a person of dignity and honour, and want to know him – as opposed to using him for my own goals. Of course I want the fire… but I believe that the way to power and more anointing is by being more sensitive to the Holy Spirit." By tuning ourselves to hear the gentle dove. He continues, "That the Holy Spirit descended and remained on Jesus tells us as much about Jesus as it does about the Holy Spirit."
I want to respect the dignity and honour of the Holy Spirit in my writing journey and not use him for my own gains. I want to be a writer that hears the coo of the dove louder than the honk of the goose, but to be that kind of writer, to hear consistently, to be still enough for the dove to remain on me, I need to be more like Jesus.
So if you're struggling to hear his plans for you right now, I invite you to join me in tuning out the honks. Maybe that means stepping back from endless advice and comparison traps for a while. Maybe it means choosing prayer over promotion, stillness over striving. Maybe it means trusting that the gentle voice calling us deeper is worth more than all the noise trying to pull us wider. The dove doesn't compete with the geese – it simply sings its own song.
My beloved spoke and said to me, "Arise, my darling, my beautiful one, come with me. See! The winter is past; the rains are over and gone. Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come, the cooing of doves is heard in our land…Arise, come, my darling; my beautiful one, come with me.”
Song of Songs 2:10-13, NIV.
Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV® Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc.® Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
The Sensitivity of the Spirit © 2000 R.T. Kendall, published by Hodder & Stoughton
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