Just Listen

 

The Sound of Silence

It was the darkest dark I’d ever experienced.  At Tuckaleechee Caverns in Townsend, TN when the tour guide turned the lights off while we were at the bottom of the cavern.  There was no natural light present at all, and I couldn’t see my hand in front of my face.  The absence of natural light is rare.  I don’t know how I felt about it.  It was a little scary and strange.  It didn’t exactly make me feel comfortable.  Sight, sound, touch, smell and taste are the five senses.  Sight or at least light is definitely something I treasure. Sound, however, or rather the lack of it, I have discovered is amazing.  In my life now, I am experiencing the most silent silence.  Oddly, it is in my home.  As I sit here, I only hear the faint sound of the heat running, but no other noise at all.  When I go to bed at night, I think about the sound I am not hearing.  In the summer, I heard frogs and crickets from the reserve pond in back of my house.  I heard the birds during the day too.  Now, in December, however, I go to bed with the sound of silence and wake up to it.  Except for the weekly garbage truck pickup, I don’t hear any traffic noises or even construction noises.  It is delightfully peaceful.  What does silence sound like?  It sounds like absolutely nothing and is actually quite comfortable to me.

I recently purchased a retro desk from my favorite thrift store.  It is solid wood and has a mid-century modern look about it.  It is, however, petite and I was able to place it by my bed by a window overlooking the backyard.  It is where the sun sets each evening.  I call this new place my devotion spot.  I sit there in complete silence with only my own thoughts.  There are no distractions, no stimuli, no interruptions.  It is a place to ponder, to pray, to study, to reminisce, or to read.  On occasion, I hear the distant sound of a train whistle as the freight train goes down the tracks nearby.  Even now, as I sit typing this story in my office, the only sound is the clicking of the keys on the keyboard.  It is refreshing to have no sound.  It is therapeutic.  I stopped typing to enjoy it.  It is complete silence.  I can hear nothing but my own breathing.  I’ll admit I just heard a distance sound of an airplane, but those are rare.  Without, the television or radio on, the silence is deafening, and I realize it is a luxury.  Don’t I miss the sound of our family when the children were young and played loudly in the house?  Of course, I do, but that was a different time and place. Decades of life experiences have made me appreciate the soothing quiet. Now that I live alone, I don’t mind the solitude.  I can literally hear a pin drop, and the silence is golden. “Speech is silver, silence is golden” is the full ancient proverb usually only quoted in part.  Silence is calming and decreases stress and helps to lower blood pressure while increasing blood flow to the brain.  Enjoying silence helps me to be more mindful of my emotions, and to feel closer to God.  “Be still and know that I am God” is Psalm 46:10. I would encourage everyone to practice a time of silence during the day.  Being alone with your own thoughts can be very healing and strengthen your ability for discernment.

Just to clarify, I am definitely not talking about the “silent treatment”.  The silent treatment is a refusal to speak to someone as a form of passive-aggressive behavior.  It is used as a way to punish someone and is a form of emotional abuse.  It is a manipulative and controlling tactic that leads to feelings of abandonment, rejection and emotional pain for the recipient.  This forced silence is obviously not the same as the refreshing silence I described above.  As with anything, silence can be our enemy or our friend.  If used properly, though, the quietness can help us to find our inner thoughts among the noise of the world.  Time moves by so swiftly and is a whirlwind of activities.  Inundated with social media clamor and all of the real-time tragedy that we experience daily; it is important to weed out what is not healthy for us mentally. Our thoughts begin racing through our minds like a stampede of horses.  Frequently, I cannot fall asleep at night because I need my thoughts to stop racing through my mind.  In these times, I focus on the silence and with breathing techniques, I am getting better at calming my brain in preparation for sleep.  Lay your phone aside, turn off the television and just listen. We are surprised at what we “hear” when it is silent.   

  Tammy Harvey

Written:  12/10/2022