Turn Off The Noise

I watched the Super Bowl for awhile Sunday night, and caught the halftime show. It made my head hurt.

Kent and I rarely watch television per se. We just don’t have the time. We sometimes watch episodes of certain shows, or a series, or an occasional movie, but always streamed through AppleTV - so we are not used to commercials. Super Bowl night, we watched the half-time show and the commercials for a little while. It was an odd experience. I didn’t understand much of what I was watching, and found the mad frenetic pace of the show disconcerting, the short advertising clips all too brief, disjointed, choppy. And loud. OMG, it was so loud. The discordant cacophony was downright unpleasant, and I realized that I’ve become, to some extent, an alien in my own land. It’s an odd thing to realize such a thing while watching the country’s favorite bonding ceremony of the year.

In thinking this over in the past day or so, I’ve realized just how much I’ve come to treasure the quiet; how much I intentionally seek silence, how I curate the space around me to lead into the quiet spaces of my life. After watching about 90 minutes of the Super Bowl, I’m fairly certain I go against the tide of American life - at least the tide of youth and those who wish to remain young, to act young, to be young. It would appear that our new American norm is about the noise, certainly not about the quiet. (Once when my husband and I mentioned to a restaurant manager how loud the restaurant was, he said, “Oh, that’s intentional. Our concept is noise. It makes people feel at home.”) And when I go out into the world of shopping malls, cafes, hair salons or the occasional movie theater, I realize that today’s society has no place for quiet. I watch people in their cars, and if stopped at a traffic light, the bone-jarring beat of the sound system cranked into decibel levels far beyond tolerable beats against my bones, having crossed the space of metal and concrete, invading my own space. Adults, teens and children alike walk around with ears plugged with mini-devices of various makes, models and sizes, as they walk-run in step-beat to a private audio assault not heard by those outside of their self-imposed exile. Our church worship music is offered up loud and wide, not only in full abandon, but with speakers and systems blaring forth, as if to reach to the very footstool of God Himself. Trendy hair salons pour out edgy music along with color and shampoo to demonstrate in some way that their hair styles will be modern, hip, stylish. Restaurants play jazz or rock on never-ending playlists; some invite live music in to break the silence as if live noise must be better than the digital kind. Every space is filled with sound.

Don’t get me wrong; I love music of all kinds, but despair at the loss of quiet, and the diminishing pockets of silence, or at least of soft sounds. We’ve become a world obsessed with the loud, the blaring, the clashing — as if noise itself is enough to chase away our demons - whatever they are. We’ve lost the spaces of quiet— of conversation, of listening intently to the soft sounds of a gentle laugh, or the giggle of a baby, or the song of a bird.

I know I am likely in the minority; I treasure the quiet. Silence is necessary to the balance of my life, to the marking of my days. Invariably at the end of a work-day, I seek the solitude and silence of my home, where noise rarely intrudes unless invited in. When I am silent, I hear only my heartbeat and the whisper of God - the most treasured sound of all. To me, silence is sacred. It helps me to mark out an interior space in which there is nothing but me and God. In the quiet spaces of my life, I can hear the whisper-quiet voice of God, His gentle call, His heart beat.

It’s not that all noise is wrong or bad; of course not! The laughter of my grandchildren playing in the yard; the shouts of joy as they run along the waves of the beach, the treasured conversations with my husband over the dining room table after a long day at work - these are good sounds, necessary noise to the rhythm of life. But if all I hear is noise, and never allow myself the luxury of entering into the space of silence, I know in that bone-deep place that my soul will lose its way. Without silence, there is no opportunity to hear the quiet voice of Him who will guide, who will admonish, who will tell me just how much He loves me. 

And seeking the quiet, the silence? It is all about intention, about purposefully shutting out the noise; to curate a space and time in which I choose quiet and silence over the cacophony of today’s noisy world.

For me, the first and last 30 minutes of each day are the most treasured space for this intentional quiet, this silence— for “plugging in” to the voice within my soul, to the holy whispers within. A time of quiet first thing in the day is a gentle escort into the craziness of that noisier world outside my door.  I praise, I pray, I think, I ponder. I write. This time provides strength for the day ahead, provides words for difficult encounters, pours out a peace that will cover my day.  When I miss my time of silence in the dawn of morning, the remainder of the day’s hours are not quite right.  My rhythm is off. I’m off balance, as if walking on a slippery surface that is slightly skewed, always searching for that sense of equilibrium. It becomes a long day indeed.

Similarly ending the day with quiet and silence ushers me into the slower pace of breathing, thinking, being. Intentionally seeking to be quiet, to read a quiet meditation, a bible verse; to stay away from TV or music or conversation. This allows me to review the day, mark what was good, make note of what wasn’t, and pray for forgiveness, for my family and friends, and give thanksgiving. Sleep comes more easily when it has been welcomed with quiet intentionality, with the whispers of heaven on one’s breath, the promise of hope in one’s heart.

Finding a place for quiet and silence each day gives my heart a place to breathe. It gives me a break from the frenetic pace of the world outside my door, and restores my soul. It is a good thing to turn off the world when one can. It is good to connect to a deeper place of peace within - a place that remains untouched by the world or its circumstances. I would suggest that more silence and less noise would be a good thing for everyone, if they could only find the courage to turn off the noise.