Sound Effect

Our team at CLI and the Cellucci family have been avid Hallow users since the app launched. We’ve loved listening about the saints or participating in the guided reflections during Advent and Lent. So, when the Hallow team asked if I might be interested in converting some of these weekly reflections into audio tracks for the app, I was honored. I also immediately suggested a list of big-name Catholic celebrities whose voices could really bring the messages home. Instead, our friends at Hallow liked the idea of a regular person doing it, namely me.

I thought it would be easy to just read what I wrote. They advised carving out some dedicated time and recording a large batch of tracks. Not only was it hard to find the time, it was hard to find a rhythm. What I write, I write to be read — not spoken — and I found myself tripping over sentences that I used to think were poetic masterpieces. When I said the words out loud for the audio recording, they seemed like minefields of clunky sentence structures.

As I finished the first few hours of recording, I was exhausted, and I noticed my inbox was chock full of urgent emails seeking responses. One email in particular caught my attention: it was from a very angry individual who blamed me for things outside of my control. This person had emailed me before and, at some point, I simply stopped responding. Aggravated and tired, I decided that this time I would “give her the business” and write one of my masterful retorts full of logic and airtight arguments. My keyboard almost seemed to type itself. As I got ready to press send, I looked at the fifty recordings I had just made and had a thought: what would this email sound like if I recorded it out loud? So, I did. While the grammar wasn’t too bad, the tone was awful.

I couldn’t help but wonder: where else in my life and leadership do I need to hear my thoughts before I share them? How often could I stop, say the thoughts out loud to myself, and listen to what I’m really communicating before I put it in an email, send it in a text, or share it carelessly with the intended recipient? The Lord knows every word before it’s even on my tongue. How often do I ask for His grace in keeping it there when it will not serve the moment or His mission? I decided to delete the email and go back to “the studio.” If I wouldn’t want it shared on Hallow, I sure wouldn’t want it shared with someone else!

As we begin this new week, let’s be sure we listen to our own hearts and decide to be intentional with what we share on all the platforms of our lives.