As soon as you get in your car, you probably put on music or an audiobook. When you’re home for more than five minutes don’t you turn on the radio or television for “background noise?” And certainly when you’re in the company of others, you get uncomfortable if two minutes go by without anyone speaking. Try getting a group of people to be silent. A church I attended implemented a time of quietness prior to the Sunday service. For fifteen minutes after Sunday school, the sanctuary was supposed to be a place for quiet reflection. We were to refrain from personal conversations and instead ready ourselves for worship by meditating on Scripture and praying. It was a great idea, except there was still music playing and people still rifled through their purses and shifted their weight in the pews and coughed and sometimes whispered personal conversations.
Why was it impossible for our church to achieve complete silence and stillness? Human beings are terrified of silence, because in silence we are confronted with thought. Suddenly we are bombarded with questions about the condition of the world and why bad things happen to good people and whether or not we as individuals are living up to our potential. The answers (or lack of answers) to these questions are unsettling. So we prefer to distract ourselves with a constant background of noise and sleepwalk through each day.
Pascal’s quote about silence is perhaps my favorite of his because he recognizes the damage we do to ourselves by embracing noise and shunning silence. Because we refuse to do the contemplating that comes with sitting in solitude, we don’t have the same sense of self we could have. We don’t really know how we feel about certain issues and instead come up with an opinion based on whatever seems right at the time. When was the last time you gave serious consideration to where your life is going? When confronted with a question about the meaning of life, is the first thing that pops into your head 42? Or have you actually stopped to ponder the question? We don’t all have to become philosophers, but we all ought to philosophize from time to time.
One of my Peace Corps pals told me of a Buddhist retreat in Thailand where you remain silent for a week. She read that people who go on this retreat often break down into tears because they are suddenly confronted with their innermost thoughts and feelings. There is something to this. Our culture discourages introspection. Everything is busy-ness and noise. The sound of crickets chirping is often used as comedic fodder because we recognize that silence is awkward to us. But that doesn’t mean we should avoid it. On the contrary, to grow spiritually and emotionally, one should experience silence regularly. This season of Lent is a good time to try it out if you haven’t. Turn off all your gizmos, go to a room alone and sit in silence. Allow the silence to speak to you. That may sound hippie-drippy, because too often Christians associate meditation with Eastern religions and write it off. But silence and meditation are important disciplines in the Christian faith that we have allowed our culture of loudness to squash. When you’re silent, thoughts will pop into your head. Listen with discernment. It may be God speaking to you, challenging you. It may make you uncomfortable, but discomfort can be a good thing.