The type of headline to make family and friends worry. No need to be alarmed. I’m mansplaining. 

Many spoons ago, as a newly wed in desperate need to understand this strange creature who agreed to marry me, I read the then best seller; “Men are from Mars, women are from Venus.” There was a paragraph about how men are very picky who they listen to, while women were much more promiscuous with their ears. Don’t shoot the messenger. Endowed with both the X and ‘why’ chromosome makes it true for me, but while I can’t speak for all martians, why is it that I don’t listen to everyone?

Well firstly, because I simply can’t. I don’t have the bandwidth. As it stands I have to make an appointment with myself just to scratch my arse-no-further-questions. Secondly I distrust most voices because it is likely to confirm some of the biases I was born and programmed with.

Why do we need voices in our lives? Because we’re going somewhere, right? For example, if you’re planning on becoming a zen finger-wrestling champion, you’re going to have to find, listen to and apply the right voices to get you there. Me, I want to get to Dural this weekend to check out the animal farm. So I’m going to listen to Siri to get me there. What a marvel she is. She’s never let me down over short distances, but I’m not going to trust her with my pilgrimage. A-i, iiiiiight?

My wife tells me I’m Aspergers. Admittedly when she’s annoyed with me. Not sure why she sees me as green, slimy skinny-ass vegetable inna can, but to prove her wrong I’ve done a spreadsheet of the top ten voices I often readily listen to, and indeed take to heart. 

So here we go. These are the voices that encourage me, sharpen my intellect, deepen my insight, provide me wisdom and at times challenge my proclivity for stale thinking. These are the voices that speak on my behalf. I listen to them so I can live well and eventually also die well.

10. Friends

You know who you are. The ones with gracious words speaking only truth in love. Those who carry with them salt for my wounds and light for my eyes. Not necessarily adherents to proximity nor frequency, but selfless and humble truth seekers who graciously share their pilgrimage. These I proudly call my friends.

9. Josh Garrels

Josh is a very skilled modern day psalmist, who confidently bears the Lord’s name and whose intimate lyrics and elastic, oceanic voice crashes onto the beach of my ventricles. As donkey once said to the ogre; “You cut me deep Shrek.” Josh cuts me deep. Musicians are a great shortcut because they too have distilled a selection of their own voices into sublime lyrical sound bites that probe the heart’s abyss.

8. The Pastor

One of the toughest jobs on the planet… if you know Christians. Pastors are God’s messengers and most times I hear my Shepherd’s voice through their speaking. Good Pastors are like a good internet connection, knowing the needs of the broader faith community they provide it faithfully. “Feeding the sheep and not the giraffes”, as Spurgeon used to say. Admittedly I don’t always agree with what I hear and I might get cross, right there at the cross no less! But this is precisely what’s cutting me into this classic, classy cubic zirconia you’ve come to know. A work in progress. Nevertheless I have placed myself under that authority because you and I both know, I need humility. In that ark and under that Noah I am but an acquiescent, baaa.

7. Tim Keller

Doc Keller is a New York City pastor with a keen intellect that resonates with my own restless mind. His philosophical knowledge augments Christianity perfectly as a practical theology. Evidence of his prolific reading bleeds through his prolific writings. While assuaging this essay I have just finished the twelfth of about nineteen of his novels. Each I treat as a text book writing down my own appendix alongside his, as behooves a good asparagus spear my dear. Safe to say Tim is my Gandalf from a distance, which makes me Dodo dumping on mount Doom.

6. John Parsons

John is a Jewish Christian, or maybe that’s Christian Jew? Well known for his website and Facebook page “Hebrew for Christians”, where he generously shares his remarkable insights gleaned from archaeologing the original archaic Hebrew and Greek scriptures. This is a non self-seeking salt-and-light teacher, who does not mince his words, yet manages to do so with the diplomacy of Winnie the Pooh.

5. Jonathan Cahn 

Jonathan is a Messianic Rabbi who has written a number of intestinally detailed prophetic books that deals with current world events in line with Biblical prophecies which continually astounds me. I imagine his living room wall must put Sherlock Holmes’s to shame, replete with a synapses tapestry of photographs and scribbles linked with red thread and pins. So far I’ve read four of his books faster than my son can tie his shoelaces. I grew up in a church with a large emphasis on prophecy which explains why as a born futurist, I continually have an appetite for the long distance plans of God plainly expounded.

4. My Children

I might do a follow up book and call it “Men are from Mars, women are from Venus and children are from Chupiter.” I don’t know. Though they are still young in their thinking I listen very closely to my children. Thanks to them I count myself an expert at interpreting emojis. There are moments they surprise me how smart their rationalizing have become, and then at other times I realize how immature they still are in the absence of life’s experiences. Of course God, the Ancient One bends to break His ear towards those whom He calls His children, for we are in His presence forever infants in our words and deeds.

3. Jennifer

The alien from Venus I was telling you about earlier. Of course I am of the belief that we do not marry someone just for the procreation ritual, but that God has many purposes for putting two people together, including business and spiritual. Reflecting on our time together thus far, I can confidently say that there are things only Jenni could have said to me for me to have listened. “Vacuum the lounge please otherwise, you know what!” Call me wise for knowing on which side my bed is buttered. On at least two occasions God revealed secrets I had, to Jenni in a dream, which astonished me so yeah, Jenni is my first and last, the other half of my soul.

2. The Holy Spirit

The Holy Spirit is an intriguing voice I greatly respect and admire. It is remarkable that whenever the Holy Spirit speaks it let’s me know it is Him speaking. Not God or Jesus but Him. As Mother Theresa once described “it is an inaudible voice that speaks with utter clarity.” There are times I would literally groan during my prayer times, where I was unable to get the words out through my tears, when I would hear His voice making intercession for me. Something like; “Father, what Stephen is trying to say is the following, please do this and that for him.” Much like a skilled translator. It’s a voice that blesses, converting the groanings of the soul and sheds light on words and events. It is a voice much like what I recognize in my daughter as she grows up, a voice that is able to distill complex truths into its simplest essence.

1. The Bible

Of course the Bible is the number one voice that speaks on my behalf. It is the voice that forms the core and foundation of my being. On pains of death it is a voice I shall never abandon. It is a remarkably unique and living voice that is always relevant no matter the times or generation. It always has something to say. The Bible is the parable for any nation, culture or society. It is the only trustworthy book that exists in the entire world that has the most accurate God-made plan of the future laid out in black and white.

There you have it; Bible first, current day levitical priesthood second, and creative Christian intellectuals third. With my beautiful wife and children the prose somewhere amongst the storms.