The world is so noisy: Text notifications demanding attention; email pop-ups with constant tiny fires to put out; my favorite music playlist on a loop; phone ringing – is it spam? national news buzzing while I do chores; dishwasher sloshing; furnace cranking; and always, always people talking to us — asking, wanting, explaining.
Sometimes I think I find silence in a few stolen moments scrolling on my phone. Just the relaxation of passive entertainment delivered in bite-sized moments of tiny wonder. You mean I really can still learn to shuffle dance in my advanced years? Or, there I am binging on a mini-series, tuning in breathlessly to yet another installment. Is the unthinkable about to happen? I have to find out!
But when I look away from it, I feel jangly and wired. If there is a gap, if the music stops, or the podcast ends, if I’ve watched the same shuffle dance pattern so long it’s burned in my brain — I am faced with silence. A silence that is uncomfortable. An absence of stimulation where I feel empty. Everything bright and brilliant seems to be located in some device. And my own world seems dim by comparison, so I have to go searching for the next sparkly thing that I should be thinking about.
But in that hollowness, I have to consciously stop. I have to remind myself that I’m not empty at all! I have to recall again that the silence I’ve been avoiding is waiting there with a gift for me in its hands:
The LORD said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by.”
Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.
Then a voice said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” 1 Kings 19:11-13
It’s very hard to spend time listening for that gentle whisper. It’s hard to acclimate to a lack of sensory feedback because the immediate sensation feels like something’s wrong. It feels wrong to do nothing, to be quiet, to be alone when so much needs our attention. It feels like walking blindly into an elevator shaft. What if there is nothing there but empty space?
But the Bible shows us over and over again that the silence is far from empty. It’s on that cold and quiet mountain of our solitude, in our prayer, in our contemplation, that we can feel what it actually feels like for the Lord to pass by.
by Carie Grant
