Clear the Noise

 

Adjacent to our neighborhood park is a recreation center, complete with swimming pool and water slides. The gym stays busy all year round, of course, from early til late. During the swim season, the pool is a bee hive of fun and activity. In those months, when you walk the path in that corner of the park, you hear laughter and splashing and young voices at play. You can sense the energy.

On a recent walk, for some reason I was struck by the silence. I wondered what the pool was like in the dormant season of winter. So I did a little exploring and found a door with windows that allowed me to catch a glimpse. It was interesting. The cover over the waters, the open spaces devoid of lounge chairs and people, the dry concrete - everything seemed so clean and neat. But the most striking thing about the place was the silence.

We do not get much silence in our lives these days. The buzz of lights and the muffled roar of air conditioning is the soundtrack of even our quietest moments. Our overbooked schedules, and the overbooked schedules of our children, keep us constantly moving through a heavy cloud of noise. My daddy was a quiet man. He liked things calm and quiet. I can remember him saying on many occasions, “Will you kids knock it off? I can’t even hear myself think!”

Our lifestyles tend to keep us in such a place. We can’t hear ourselves think. We can’t hear what our own inner voice would say to us. We can’t hear what God might say to us. Sometimes there is just too much noise.

Tomorrow begins the season of Lent. It is a good opportunity for each of us to clear some of the noise out of our lives. Even just a few minutes of intentional silence each day could result in amazing things. A calmer mind. A quieted heart. A deep, relaxing breath. It might also lead to “hearing ourselves think”, which can be a most helpful thing in general. Who knows? We might even hear, in some mysterious way, a word from God. Then things could get really interesting!.

Peace.