Open Your Ears

I was sitting alone in my kitchen last night, the house quiet except for the gentle hum of the refrigerator and the steady tick of the wall clock. Maybe it was the stillness, or it was the lingering weight of a conversation I’d had earlier in the day, but my mind drifted back to the words Christ spoke at the Last Supper: “This is my body…”

I must have read or heard those words a thousand times, but for whatever reason, they settled differently on me this time. Maybe you’ve had moments like that, when something familiar suddenly feels sharp, as if it’s cutting through the noise of the world.

And then, right beside those sacred words, another phrase echoed in my mind, one we hear all the time today: “My body, my choice.”

I’m not trying to start an argument or spark some political firestorm. That’s not what this is about.

What hit me wasn’t the debate; it was the eerie similarity in the wording and how those words are getting used. Christ says, “This is my body,” offering Himself, pouring out love, life, and sacrifice.

Today, we hear, “My body…” used in a way that centers the self, the individual, the closing of the fist around one’s own autonomy. And for a moment, I felt a chill, like someone somewhere had taken holy language and twisted it, just enough to turn the meaning inside out.

I’m not saying people using that phrase know they’re echoing something ancient and sacred. In fact, that’s the disturbing part.

Some of the most effective lies are never loudly proclaimed. They are whispered so closely to the truth that you barely notice the difference until after there’s damage done.

I sat there, staring into my whiskey glass, thinking about how often that happens in the world nowadays. How does what is sacred get repurposed, misused, or reinterpreted?

Language can easily shift our perspective on everything. Words shape beliefs and actions, while actions shape the individual.

As that thought settled in, I felt this tug, like a quiet inner voice saying, “Open your ears.” Because if we don’t listen closely, if we don’t weigh the words spoken around us, we get pulled into a current we never intended to follow.

The more I thought about it, the more I realized that the point isn’t to assign blame or wag fingers. The real question is: What voice am I listening to?

Christ’s words were about giving, offering life, offering Himself, offering hope. They weren’t about control; they were about surrender.

However, when that same rhythm of language becomes something aimed at self-empowerment rather than self-gift, it transforms into a shadow of the original, close enough to sound familiar, yet carrying a completely different essence.

And I guess that’s why the moment felt so heavy. It wasn’t outrage or fear, but clarity, like suddenly seeing the outline of something that’d been hiding in plain sight.

So there I sat in my quiet kitchen, the clock ticking, the glass empty, thinking that maybe we all need, every once in a while, to stop and open our ears. To listen not just to what is said, but to the spirit behind the words.

To discern whether a phrase carries truth or whether it’s a distortion dressed in familiar clothing. Because some echoes aren’t just coincidences, some are warnings.

And sometimes all it takes to hear them is a little stillness and a willingness to pay attention.