what we do not hear are the voices of people who live but the whispers of the specters who dwell behind the shadows we cast in our rooms. what we then see, after the voices creep into our semi-conscious mind, is that there is no one, but traces of the voices, that mean so much to us but frighten us as well. we long for them and yet, we dread their presence (absence).
we then suffer from a restless awakening, breathing in deep the cool air of the sunless morning, and then till day breaks once again, we stare into nothingness, only to recall with trembling the faceless voices that speak to you, again and again.
sleep comes once again when light casts these nightmares away. but before you consider them to be mere dreams, they speak to us too when we wake. to wake is to stare into a blank picture; a canvas that is our mind as we dip our invisible paintbrushes on the palette of memory and immediate consciousness to connect images into a whole picture of experience, resulting in the immediate appearance of a picture on the canvas.
to separate them, that I cannot do. to paint a beautiful symmetrical picture, that I cannot do too.
but the drawback of such canvases is that once you paint over them, they stay. and so if you should endeavour to draw a nice portrait of yourself, one wrong stroke, and the painting becomes abstract; becomes more than just a representation. However, mistakes often speak more of the reality of humanity than beautiful, flawless and perfect portraits of ourselves. that is why I prefer landscape paintings more than portraits. at least, landscapes take longer to change.
every still moment has a voice. every moment of contemplation has a voice. every writing, painting or moment of artistic inspiration has a voice. and often we do not recognise this voice as our own. it is as if we conjure up a ghost capable of assisting us as well as dooming us. what we do not give significance to is that these ghosts, or witnesses, come from us, and us alone, clinging on to us for their dear lives (or spirits) to influence us, to preach to us, to lie to us, to convince us, to inspire us, to motivate us; whatever purposes (or hidden desires we may have). I cannot recognise them wholly but to ignore the possibility that we are their source of strength and existence is to commit a folly so great that redemption is hardly an option. we cannot be free from these hauntings so let us not ignore them. redemption is not to be freed from them but redemption is only granted to those we come face to face with them. so no amount of hiding, exorcism, casting or repulsion can drive them away. In fact, it is through them that we come to understand the meaning of redemption.
so then what is redemption? redeem from what or who? and who does the redemption? this is not a theological treatise or an apologetic call. redemption, frankly speaking, is a vague term. to be redeemed does not free you from these hauntings or ghosts who I have been describing earlier. Redemption merely means that we remain in relation to them. only that we come face to face to them, hear their voices, recognise that they actually speak your voices, and master the supernatural possibility of hearing nothing by saying nothing.

but then again, what am I saying here?

often when we claim that it is "my voice", it is actually everyone's voice, in different variations of the same condition. what we say often have already a pre-existence; have been said before, over and over again. when we hear ourselves, we hear others.
Redemption must overcome the individual trauma (of daily hauntings) as well as the universal condition consisting of a cacophony of voices (often sad, lost, lonely, sick, deprived, poor etc.) I am reluctant to believe in a universalism that is quick to judge and to force every individual into a formalised, normalised and cruel structure of coherence, because every individual has his or her own pain, struggles, happiness, sadness, tears, laughter, moments of intense emotions or intelligence. Nevertheless, the human is born to die, if not in soul, at least in body. the physical end of our lives drives us to form structures of reason (or unreason), to transcend or believe in a transcendental realm beyond our physical reality. but really, that is not the point or the fundamental goal of life. for to live really means to live, in the order and disorder we face day to day; in every moment that any voice comes knocking at our ear drums and speaks some inner thoughts, or some faceless memory of someone disappeared, decides to also visit and to drag out some painful memory or nostalgia. but really, it is just us. just us in the world to face what came and will come. I cannot know what will come that does not has a voice that hides within me. but I can know (or try to know) the voices that speak to me often. I can recognise that hauntings rely on me to exist. (I am the one being haunted and no one else in the dead of the night.) So let us challenge not the dead who may have transcended the living realm. let them die in peace. but to face the ghostly dead, requires both strength and faith. but most of all, discernment. because most if not all voices derive from us, if not you alone. to hear means more than just to hear. it is both a projection of what you want to hear (and can only hear) as well as the voice that is directed to you externally. we cannot know when they merge together. but we can know that that is reason enough to be probe deeper the origin of the voice; not to doubt, but to discern.
I cannot know who I am, unless I know what or who I listen.

so read this not because you listen to me, but you listen to yourself, and then you may or may not realise, that what I wrote, is nothing new.
you are redeemed because of both the subjective belief in the redemption and the silent voice that drags you out from the quicksand of your human predicament we all suffer.

redemption and confession are silent.