Summoning Silence
I’ve been thinking about silence lately.
In the past, I had Christian friends suggest my life would be improved by 20 minutes of quiet time every day focusing on devotionals or quiet worship songs. I didn’t buy it then.
But lately, something’s changing. Having three teens at home has exponentially increased the noise. At any one time, I can have youtube blaring from the tower, a musical on the DVR, and the sound of mallet percussion practice from a distant corner of the house; all this in addition to the washer and dryer running… on the same floor… at the same time.
Since the contractor is still working on our burnt out place (slow progress is better than no progress), we have the outside sounds.
- The local military school for boys does at least 90 minutes of drill a day, complete with cadence and multiple gun shots. The time slot shifts, and I still can’t find the pattern.
- We’re on a side street with an elementary school, so we get the parade of cars daily 7–8 and 2:30–3:30.
- My “office” (old farmhouse mudroom now doubling as a wash room) is on the corner of the house shared by an alley, so sometimes my thoughts are punctuated by music or tire squeals. These can also come from youngsters late at night on the street, complete with blaring jungle sounds that I think are supposed to be considered music.
You’d think with all this, I’d seek silence. Yet, in American culture, something about silence is uncomfortable and disquieting.
In a conversation, it used to be reported that there was a lull every 7 minutes. I can remember those lulls; everyone looked at everyone else, and as the quiet time lengthened, this pained, uncomfortable look crept into body language until someone marred the silence.
Unfortunately, in real life and relationship terms, silence is just a sign, something that stands for something else. Signs unfortunately don’t mean the same thing to everyone; they just signal that a condition has changed, the pattern has changed, and so now a different response is needed.
That’s the problem. The different response…
To some, silence means, “I’m here for you. Keep talking. I’ll keep listening.”
To others, it speaks, “Great. I blew it. You’re so angry you can’t even tell me you’re angy.”
In yet another place, it whispers, “Would you shut up already? I have a brilliant thought in response to your not-so-brilliant onslaught of words; I just need you to stop so I don’t have to rudely interrupt you.”
Finally, it simply demonstrates that the hearer is at peace and has no need to respond.
Problems arise when the signals aren’t interrupted the same way by everyone in the communication situation. As an analogy, it would be like giving an alien a car and sending them to a stoplight, only to find in their culture red is go and green is stop; the collision and confusion would be epic.
Where am I going with all this? I think I’ve been frustrated lately by the insistence that I must speak, I must act, I must interact as a sign that I’m engaged and interested in all things living. I must have 20 shows on my DVR and tons of videos from youtube as a sign that I’m still growing. All my gadgets and electronics must be the lastest and greatest and wired to some cloud. Anything else is abnormal.
Our world has changed so rapidly the expectation is that we all crave and need those changes to be fully human. I’m just finding that empty. I think that we have changed so fast very few can keep up, and I don’t think the few that can should have extra privileges or power just because they are quicker.
In society, we need a range of occupations with diverse speeds of change and growth so everyone can have a full and satisfying life. We also need to live more simply so that downtime is seen as a good thing and not stealing productivity and profit.
Now, you’ll have to excuse me. Silence is singing a siren psalm, summoning me to an unknown and uncomfortable place where strains of peace and rest hopefully await. If not, I’ll just go to the sporting goods store and buy some shooting protection earmuffs.
