Last fall the hub and I went on a getaway. He planned it, the entire thing, all I had to do was show up. It was great. Where we landed for a few nights was, unbeknownst to him, a really special place to me. Part of the charm of this place is the quiet. There are no TV's in the rooms, no guest noise, no noise at all really. The silence rushed in at us, assaulting our numbed senses. It felt almost painful at first. I loved it. It drove my hub insane. He was pacing the room, unable to allow the noise to settle him down. That is what drove me insane. :)
Have you ever been assaulted by silence? In today's noisy world, silence is rare. Even right now, as I write, there is 'silence' in our home but not really. I hear the noise of our DVR, our furnace just kicked on so I hear that as well. A minute ago some birds were cooing outside. But I would consider all those noises to be part of the most silent we get these days. But at our getaway there was none of that, well there were the birds. The silence drove my hub so nuts that we went to bed the first night at 7:30! He made himself sleep to escape the assault. I read on my Kindle in the dark. When I finally decided to sleep I laid there listening to the silence. Have you ever listened to silence? What do you hear?
Silence has its own sound. I hear a slight buzzing like sound. When I hear it I know I am listening to silence. What does your silence sound like?
In today's world of noise silence makes people uncomfortable, my hub proved that. Why did silence unsettle him? Why might it unsettle anyone? When did the disconnect between us and our inner self happen? The answer lies in the obvious. The more distractions, oh I'm sorry advances, technology offers the bigger the disconnect grows. The more noise that is offered the more silence is painful. Try this. Get to a silent as possible place. How long can you stand it? At a work staff meeting once a co-worker showed a video about, ironically, silence. Part of the video had you focus on being silent for up to 5 minutes. The clock was ticking and some people were shifting in their seats and the longer the minutes stretched the more shifting happened, and rustling of papers, and looking around to make faces at others, well you get the idea. It was fascinating to observe. Silence is not a comfort to us, we are discomforted by it.
A few years ago I was going through some stuff. It required me to settle down and be silent so I could hear what I needed to. I wasn't so sure it was actually working until one night when I got myself all situated and entered into a deliberate silence. In the silence I was able to see, in my mind's eye, a picture. I leaned in to it and I heard, through the silence, the story of that picture. It was a transforming moment and I wouldn't have had it without silence. Silence ushered me to truth. And it often does, which is why it is unsettling. We don't always like the truth, we can't always accept the truth, we won't always want to believe the truth. To avoid truth we fill up our days and nights with noise, refusing silence to have a place in us and open up truth. If we aren't addicted to drugs, alcohol, gambling, sex, or the many other addictions in this world then we are most likely addicted to noise, perhaps without even realizing it. It's so much a part of the "norm" that we don't look at it as an addiction or a numbing tool in our lives. If we feel assaulted by it then chances are good we are using it to keep silence away. The question is why. Why are we keeping silence from entering our lives? What do we think could happen if silence is allowed a place in our life? Are we afraid of silence and the truth it may reveal and why?
When was the last time you allowed silence to surround you? Maybe it's time to start listening to silence, who knows what you may hear in it that could change your life?
--------------------------------------------
*I may or may not have had the song by Simon & Garfunkel stuck in my head for days now due to writing this post! You're welcome. :)
*Here's a couple of articles I read in the past year that talk about silence as well. They are worth the read. We Need More Silence in Our Lives and 3 Ways to Add Quiet to Your Day
*Into Great Silence is a documentary that is...totally silent. It is fascinating. I highly recommend it. A friend of mine reviewed it back in the days when he was a movie critic and he exited the theater that was 100% silent for 162 minutes on to the busy New York City streets and felt assaulted! It's a fascinating look at silence.
No comments:
Post a Comment