I wrote a while ago about what it is like to grow up in a small town. It is a memory I hold dear to me and will until I no longer walk this earth. However, this morning I believe I finally figured out why, for me, a small town was such a great place. It was due to the lack of sound.
There are all types of people in this world, and each one is truly unique. Just the same, people hold certain things in common. Where we live is one such trait. Some people love the hustle and bustle of the city. Some want quiet and serenity and go as rural as possible. Then you have the others who are in between and live in the suburbs. For me, I live somewhere between a city and suburb. While it has much to offer, the one thing that I struggle to find is silence. I had that living outside of our village. The silence was amazing and something that I think many of us are missing.
I did not realize how much I was missing this silence until this morning. I am going to share my experiences. Some of you may already have found ways to get that silence, and I would love to hear what you do. For me, I didn’t know that I did not have the silence until I tripped upon it in my own house this morning. Once I found it, I started wondering why is it that so many of us try to avoid it.
This morning, I woke up at 4:30 am. This is not all that different than most of my weekday mornings. I normally get up early so I can either work, read, or exercise (yeah right). I am a creature of habit, so each morning, after closing the bedroom doors, I turn on the television to see what happened while I was sleeping or to catch up on a taped show. If I am going out for a walk, I grab my ear buds and turn on the music while I walk around the neighborhood. If I am going to write, I will either have the TV on or music or both. I constantly have sound going on around me. Even on the weekends when cleaning, we have music going on in the background, and were we live, the sound of fire sirens or police are an all too regular occurrence. But today was different.
I woke this morning and reached for the remote. I pointed at the television and stopped. I paused for a moment to take in just how quiet was the house. My wife and daughter were both asleep, and with their doors closed I could not even hear the rhythmic breathing coming from the room. The cat curled up in a corner shortly after she walked out of the room with me. No sirens. No outside noises. The only sound was the ticking of a cuckoo clock. Even that seemed muted in the quiet. I put the remote down and just sat. I didn’t even turn on the light. I just sat there in the dark, and I visited with an old friend – silence.
At first, I didn’t like the visit. I have often spoke to my confirmation students about taking time to sit in silence. I tell them that this is not a time to pray, for we all know how to do that, but just to sit in silence. They complain that this is difficult. They cannot shut off their thoughts, and they end up sitting thinking about things that they need to do, people to call, what is for dinner, and other items on their agenda. Students tell me that it is impossible to do. This morning as I sat down in the dark, quiet room, I too fought with those issues.
Today, I did something different then in the past. I did not fight those thoughts. They ran through my head and I acknowledged each one and let it go. I let the checklist of the day go by. I passed by the thought of the drive ahead. I agreed with the thought of worrying about getting everything I needed to do, done. Then I found the part that the students didn’t like. I think in the past I always worried about the first thoughts that came up so much, I never reached this point.
Once I let the, what might be called, trivial items go by then my thoughts turned towards my actions of late. How I have treated colleagues in all situations, how I treat my family, my thoughts towards others, how I have been treating myself. I think this is where my students struggle with silence. There is nothing to drown these out when you have no outside stimuli coming in. While I try very hard to be a good person, I slip, I falter, I fail. My thoughts reminded me of each and every one. I wanted to jump up. I reached for the remote. I longed for some sound to break me from this world. Silence was no longer my friend.
I did not want to sit there anymore. What a horrible way to start the day. Then I allowed it to happen. I started to acknowledge each of these just as I had with the first set of thoughts. I noted the people I had wronged. I saw the people I had let down. I saw that I was not treating myself as good as I should. Just as with the first group, once each thought had its turn it disappeared. I knew that they would return, but for now they would no longer haunt me.
Finally, silence and I could be together like we have not been for a long time. I felt it waft over me slowly taking over my mind and being. I felt a peace like I have not felt since I was a kid. I transported back to the same feeling I would have sitting in my backyard especially at night. I would just lay on the grass and let go. I went there today. I let go. My second alarm on my phone went off telling me it was time to get ready. I wanted to ignore it. I did not want to say good bye to my old friend. We had just gotten back together. I decided good-bye would not be the way, I would visit with this friend more and more. I stood up feeling better about the day. I had optimism abound on the events of the day. I was freed from the thoughts that were holding me back. I also knew that I had work to do, I did not want those thoughts to return the next time I try to visit with my old friend.
In today’s world, we keep a fast pace. We are always looking for stimuli of some sort or another. We try very hard not to be with silence. It does not help that every time we turn around, we are offered another product to give us just such a stimuli going and silence at bay. It is a shame. Perhaps it is not so much that people don’t want the silence, but more that they are afraid of the trip to get there. They do not want to be left alone with their own thoughts. They have fear as to what silence will really be like.
I think the greatest experience I ever had with silence came while sky diving. At 4000 feet, there is no sound – no birds, no sirens, no….nothing. You get to listen to nothing. While we cannot all jump out of a plane, perhaps if we all visited with silence a little more often it would help. I am not saying to go off the grid and stop using technology and such. However, what would happen if we all took a little time each day to set it all aside and find…nothing?
Final note for today. I found it interesting that while typing I had a strong urge to turn on my music. I always do that while writing. Today, I stopped. The only sound while writing was the keys on the keyboard. What a great sound.
Thank you for meandering with me today,