concentrate

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Too Quiet Is Something We Don’t Experience Much

We all need a little quiet time in our lives but sometimes it can be too quiet.

too quiet is something we don't experience much

This past week my wife, Lily, went out of town for a few days to help her mother. That meant I had to fend for myself for four days. I’m not much of a cook so Lily left me with enough leftovers and quick meal options to cover most of my meals. 

She likes to do that so that I don’t have any excuses for going out to eat. She knows I don’t need much of a reason to grab a burger or a pizza from one of my familiar spots. 

And she doesn’t like me spending the money … or maybe it’s that she doesn’t like that I’m eating out without her. 

There is nothing new with this routine, but there’s something different this time. 

It’s way more quiet this time, or perhaps I should say it’s quiet for longer this time. 

You see, any time Lily has gone away for an extended period of time, I’ve been working. Most of my days were spent working at the office. I was out of the house and busy during the day. 

Even my evenings were filled with meetings and events. 

But now that I’m retired, I don’t have an office to go to. I’m just in the house all day long and it’s quiet – too quiet.

Now don’t get me wrong; I don’t mind the quiet. In fact, even when I was working, I needed quiet to work. 

Being blessed with a touch of ADD, I didn’t need anything to distract me when I studied. So quiet was what I looked for.

One time I had a staff member whose office was beside mine. In the mornings when I would be working on a sermon, he would play music. It wasn’t that his music was bad or anything, but he had a woofer that kept pounding the beat. I couldn’t really hear the tune or the instruments, but the constant boom, boom, boom I did hear. 

That was enough to distract me so that I couldn’t focus on what I was studying. I often took my laptop and went into the sanctuary where it was quiet. 

I like quiet and I need quiet. But what I’m finding is that quiet without being highly focussed for long portions of the day is maybe a little too quiet. 

I may have to resort to doing random shopping for things I don’t know I need. Maybe I should start drinking coffee so I can pop into Tim Hortons and grab a cup in a noisy environment. 

Last night I listened to a sermon while I played pool for an hour.

My big fear is that if it’s too quiet for too long I’ll start talking out loud to myself. … I could use different voices and accents and talk about nothing just so that it wouldn’t be too quiet. 

Here’s the thing: Most of us will try to limit the amount of quiet in our lives so we don’t experience too much quiet. But to hear God speak to us we need quiet. In fact, many people don’t experience God in their lives because they are never quiet long enough to really get in touch with Him. Try some quiet time and focus your mind on God. Prepare with reading scripture, journaling your thoughts and prayer. See if God speaks to you out of your quietness.

That Life!

Paul

Question: How could you add a little quiet to your life? Leave your comments and questions below.

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It’s Too Quiet For My Own Good

Is it possible for an environment to be too quiet to be helpful?

It's too quiet for my own good

I asked myself this question the other day because I’ve been working alone now for about seven months. I’m wondering if I’m too alone.

Some people like noise and can focus and concentrate even when they are surrounded by all kinds of sounds and activities. For me, that just wreaks havoc with my ADD. With every little sound, voice or music – especially music – I turn to look.

I’ve tried working in a coffee shop. There is something about the general noise level that makes any specific sound indistinguishable … but I still get distracted. 

I work best when there is no noise, nothing to distract me from what I’m working on.

With even the faintest sound of instruments or base beat, I find myself tapping my feet and getting lost in the melody or rhythm. 

So when COVID shut our office down, it was the perfect place for me to go to study. 

There were no taps on the door, no chatter in the foyer, no whirl of machines. It was silent. 

I liked it … at least for a while. 

Now I’m not so sure I like it being as quiet as it is. Even a mouse might be a welcomed sound.

I know that I still need things quiet when I study, but when the quiet goes on for too long, it can become a discouragement. 

Maybe there is a sense of quiet loneliness that creates a want for something, someone, anything to break the silence for a little while. 

The silence is so dominant that it has actually reversed its appeal. 

If the only thing you can hear is your own tinnitus, it’s too quiet.

I know that some people put on white noise to go to sleep … maybe I need some white noise in my day. 

I could turn on a fan in another room and let it oscillate back and forth. I’m just afraid that after an hour of that I might find myself trying to guess when the fan is moving from left to right or right to left. 

I once had an assistant in the office beside mine who studied best with music on in the background. That used to drive me nuts. 

I got him to turn it down when I studied, but he had a subwoofer that I swear sounded like it was touching the wall between us. All I could think of was boom … boom boom … boom … boom boom. 

I sometimes went to another room to study because I couldn’t concentrate.

I don’t want that noise, but maybe if I just knew there was some activity in the building it would be enough to give me a sense of being around others. 

I’m not sure what the answer is, but I’m going to have to start trying something.

Here’s the thing: Sometimes our quiet time can be so silent that we don’t hear from God.  You’ve probably experienced that at some point. You read the Bible, you pray and when you get up, there has only been a one-sided exchange of thoughts and words. It might not be that it is too quiet, it might be that you have not quieted your mind and heart enough to be able to receive anything from God. Find the right balance of quiet by clearing your mind of your agenda and purposefully listening for a respond or quiet impression that enters your senses. Once you’ve experienced it, you will want to create that kind of quiet every day. Listen for the Lord.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: Do you need more or less quiet right now? What will you do about it? Leave your comments and questions below.

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