Endangered Species

“Silence is an endangered species…real quiet [is] not an absence of sound, but an absence of noise.”  Those thoughts are from Gordon Hempton an acoustic ecologist who has circled the globe three times over the last 30 years in pursuit of Earth’s rarest nature sounds. He goes on to say that quiet is a “think tank of the soul."  I think he is on to something there. 

A few years ago Maria and I sat in Mexico watching a film series that explores the world from the perspective of Jesus.  The particular one we were watching that evening considered noise in our lives.  A couple of minutes into the discussion everything went blank, and in silence questions scrolled across the screen:  “Why is silence so hard to deal with?  Do you have a cell phone?  Do you have a TV?  More than one TV?  Do you have a radio on all day?  Do you wish God’s voice would be louder in your life?  Is there a connection between the amount of noise in our lives and our inability to hear God?  Then Moses and the priests, who are Levites, said to all Israel, ‘Be silent, Oh Israel, and listen!’ (Deuteronomy 27:9) Search your hearts and be silent. (Psalm 4:4)  But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed. (Luke 5:16)  When was the last time you were in a solitary place?  Does my schedule, my time, my life look like that of a person who wants to hear God’s voice?  Maybe the healing and guidance we desperately need is not going to come from one more meeting or therapy session or sermon or self-help book but from simply listening for the voice of God.”