I’d forgotten about this little phenomena of what I call the “spiritual voice.”  Other names might include “prayer voice,” but that is misleading because it is not restricted to only moments of prayer.

When people around you start talking about God or their relationship with God or are praying, take notice.  Does their voice become softer?  Is it suddenly quieter?  Does it sound like the mist in the early morning?  Is there an ethereal quality about their voice that was never there before?

If so, they have fallen into the trap of the spiritual voice.  It’s when well-meaning people think they will be considered more spiritual (by those around them? by God?) if they adopt a different sounding voice, more reverent sounding perhaps, than their normal, every day voice.  I have never understood why people with perfectly normal sounding voices will out of nowhere adopt a very unnatural voice in order to talk about God or to God.  Maybe this is learned from tele-evangelists–I seem to remember the lady with the pink hair talking in a very special sort of voice.  Maybe the thought is that if you sound as if you are on the verge of an emotional breakthrough of some sort, God listens to you more. 

This is a mystery to me.

Can any of you explain it?

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