the beauty and terror of silence
Silence is a beautiful thing. For some it is also terrifying. Spending a month away from the noise taught me a little about both.
The first few days of my time away from the noise was quite difficult. I would get into my car and immediately reach for the volume knob – then remember I had to turn it off, not up. I would pick up my phone to check the latest Twitter updates, and remember that I had deleted the Twitter app off my phone. I would look for email, grab the remote, pick up a book … and then remember that I was supposed to be turning these things off.
Amazingly enough, I considered myself to be someone who embraced silence quite well. Yet in just the first few days I saw how much noise I instinctively imported into my life. Email, TV, music, media, digital anything … it was all there all the time. The sad thing is that for most of us we cannot live without it.
The reason I say this is sad is because it has removed us not so much from connection with other people, but with connection from ourselves. There is a lyric in the song Perfect Blue Buildings by Counting Crows that says:
Gotta find me a little oblivion baby, Try to keep myself away from me
I think noise is our oblivion. Perhaps this is why silence is terrifying. For in it, we are left to the noise in our own hearts, minds, and souls. And trust me there is a lot there.
After the first few days of being fidgety, feeling anxious about email, and wondering if the Yankees won their 27th World Series (and by the way they did win in six games over the Phillies – interestingly enough I did not get one single message from anyone about it – even all my friends who were rooting for the Phillies, the same ones who sent me messages before the Series saying the Yankees were going to lose).
Once the silence began to settle into my life, I began to hear more and listen better. It was refreshing to sit and read large sections of the Bible over the span of three or more hours. I felt pulled into the story and became enamored with it. And when I was done reading, I had nothing to distract me from what I had just read. I was able to sit, reflect, journal, pray, listen, contemplate – without competing with anything.
As the month wore on I realized how much time I had each day to just commune, in silence, with God. It was as though he and I left a noisy, crowded restaurant that played the music too loud, and went for a long walk through neighborhood streets late at night. Just him and me. And it was lovely.
Many have asked me, “Does it feel good to be back online.” My answer has been “No, it is painful.” For me it is like going to lunch with a person who keeps answering their cell phone and talking like you are not there – just constant interruption.
Many have asked, “What have you learned?” I suppose I am learning that we make ourselves busy, surround ourselves with noise, and try to be doing something all the time. In the end we end up serving the noise, rather than using certain technology to serve us.
Like, Pavlov’s dogs we instinctively react to all sorts of stimuli without thinking. We run to email, the television, Facebook, and everything else day after day. If we were to sit back and watch we might just begin to wonder who is controlling who. My bet is we might just see that the noise is controlling us, and most appear powerless to do anything. I believe the reality is that God is content not to compete with all of that. He will simply sit quietly and wait for us to finish our “one more email” or “make one last call.” The problem is that were are fooled into thinking that there is always more to do.
While we say there is more to do, at some level there is an arrogance wrapped up in that. It was amazing to me how people got along without having me nearby digitally. We make ourselves believe there is more to do all the time, but rarely do we stop and talk about what we have to be. Maybe if we stop doing so much we could enjoy ourselves and our being much more.
I think that if we contextualized 1 Kings 19 today we might say, “There was 1,000 emails in a week, but God was not in the emails. There were 47 friend requests on Facebook, but God was not in the 47 friends requests. There was a Bonus offer on digital cable, but God was not in the Bonus offer on digital cable. After all of this came a gentle whisper.”
How can we hear the gentle whisper? If only we are quiet and still enough to hear it.
I encourage any who read this to simply take one day (surely you can do this, and if you cannot get some help) to shut everything (email, music, TV, etc.) down. Turn it off. In this one day ask yourself how much time you are giving over to the noise. You may just begin to see that it is the noise that determines and directs our days and weeks (which eventually turn into our lives) much more than the gentle whisper.