quiet

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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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My Tinnitus Just Got Diagnosed Today

It’s been so quiet around here that I discovered I have tinnitus.

My Tinnitus Just God Diagnosed

I shouldn’t be surprised … and it makes perfect sense that I would have it. I’ve certainly been exposed to my share of loud noises. 

But, until this Covid isolation, I really hadn’t noticed it at all. That might say something about how infrequently I am in silence. 

If anyone should have tinnitus, it should be my daughter, Karlie. When she was weeks old, she was in a gym, filled with high school students kicking basketballs and volleyballs and yelling at the top of their lungs. Somehow she slept right through all the noise, but you’d think that maybe it would have brought on some tinnitus effects. 

So far nothing for her.   

But then there is my wife. She spent much of her youth listening to quartet music … mostly because her dad sang in a quartet. It’s hardly the kind of music that you would think could produce tinnitus, but she has developed a rather pronounced case.

… Which leads me to think that my parents were upset at the wrong music when I was listening to my rock music at levels that were known to fry speakers.

I also went to concerts – a lot of them – in my late teens and early twenties.

It was not uncommon at those concerts to have difficulty hearing the person right beside you tell you he thought the band was great. You just guessed what he was saying by the huge smile on his face.

There was one concert I went to, however, that beat all other concerts for causing my potential hearing damage. 

It was an Emerson Lake and Palmer (ELP) concert – and it was outdoors, no less. I was more that halfway back from the stage in the football stadium, but when the dust settled after the concert, I had ringing in my ears for three days!

I had never experienced that before.

My ears should have been ruined, but they weren’t. I still had great hearing and I think my hearing now is still pretty good for someone my age. 

I don’t have any trouble hearing most people, as opposed to my quartet-listening wife. 

In the midst of all this isolation, I find that I am alone more in my office. There is nothing happening outside my office either. All there is is silence. In that silence that surrounds me, I am starting to pick up some white noise in my ears.

Some people pay money to buy white noise recordings so they can calm down or get to sleep at night. I get my white noise for free.

I understand that what I have is nothing – it’s minor, not really even a bother. But I am wondering what else I will discover about myself as our isolation continues. 

… Well, I better turn up the iTunes on my computer so I don’t fall asleep with all this white noise in my ears. 

Here’s the thing: When our world is full of sound, sometimes it’s hard to hear what God might be saying to us. Our attention is on other things, turned to other sources. Right now, while we are experiencing more time to be quiet and think, while we encounter a season where we can actually hear what’s going on between our ears, take the time to try to hear God. He is saying things to you in nature, through other people, in your thoughts and, ultimately, through His Word the Bible. Let’s not miss this opportunity to tune Him in. 

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: How have you been using silence to your advantage lately? Leave your comments and questions below.

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My Peace Was Interrupted

Have you ever gotten away for some peace and quiet, to a place where you can relax and think clearly, only to have your peace interrupted with noise?

My Peace Was Interrupted

That happened to me the other day.

I made my annual trip to our cottage to think, pray and plan for the year ahead. One reason I go there is that I relax well there, and the other reason is that it is quiet.

Albeit the occasional noise of a lawnmower or circular saw breaks the quiet, but for the most part it is very peaceful. All our neighbours are seniors or their kids have grown up. Lily and I are the young ones in our little section.

But last year, near the end of the summer, a family moved in just kiddy-corner to us. This family broke the pattern. They have two young children, somewhere between 3 and 7. 

I remember having kids that age, but what I don’t remember is how loud they were. … either that or this is the loud family! It seems like it’s party central all the time at their place. The kids are up early and the parents are up late.

There is nothing wrong with it most of the time – except when I’m here specifically to be quiet, reflective, to think and plan.

When our kids were young, I never thought of how loud we were as a family – especially the kids. Kids’ high pitched voices without a volume control makes for some serious noise.

Even if an adult is loud, the lower tone in their voice usually only leads to muffled noise. With kids, however, you can hear every word distinctly and clearly.

Kids are busy, too. They are not going to just sit and read. … I’m not even sure one of the neighbour kids is old enough to read. 

These kids want action! They want entertainment! And they want it all the time! 

Right now there is a road hockey game going on at 10:00 in the morning right outside my window.  

It’s summer here in vacation land – who’s playing street hockey right now? 

Growing up I played plenty of road hockey. We played mostly in the spring and then in the fall. In the heat of the summer we were down at the river catching frogs or something. 

I realize that some kids are louder than others. Some instinctively play quietly. They play with each other. 

But these kids need to be yelling and they need their parents involved. All their play is a big production. 

They have two full-sized hockey nets on the road right now. I don’t think the game is going that well for the oldest kid because he’s telling everyone that the game is over. 

No one seems to be paying attention to him, however, so he keeps reminding the adults and his sister over and over again as they play around him. 

It’s noisy, but it’s also Saturday morning. They didn’t arrive until last night … and I’m leaving in an hour or so. 

So glad they were not up for the week.

Here’s the thing: You can do your best at setting up a quiet place to spend time with God. But what you still may have to battle is how loud your thoughts are, and how distracted your mind can get. Sometimes you just have to work through those noisy sessions and find a way to focus. 

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What distracts you the most when you are spending time with God? Leave your comments and questions below. 

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I Didn’t Realize How Precious Quiet Is

My house is quiet right now. Normally at 9:30 on a Saturday morning there is the sound of footsteps on the hardwood, the sound of dishes pre or post breakfast being put in the dishwasher.

But not this morning.

It’s just me at home; Lily has gone to Toronto to visit our kids. Sitting here right now, I am very aware of the quiet.

Now it’s not completely quiet – there are the faint sounds of cars going up the street, and the chirping of birds every once in a while.

But it’s quiet and that is rare for me.

For Lily this would not happen because, though she is home alone most days, and could possibly experience the quiet that I am right now, she has tinnitus so she always has a background track of static or white noise going on.

It’s interesting that she has this ear condition and not me. In my late teens and early twenties I went to a lot of rock concerts where the sound left your ears ringing when it was over.

I went to one concert – Emerson Lake and Palmer (ELP) – that was actually outside in a football stadium. My seat was half way back from the stage and it still left my ears ringing for three days afterwards.

Yet here I sit in silence … except now the hum of the furnace is kicking in.

I wonder how much we take note of the quiet. Mostly we are surrounded by noise. We turn on the TV or play our music, not really to listen to it, but to have a background track to our life.

When I go biking, if I’m alone I will often put my earbuds in and listen to tunes. Rarely will I just ride unaccompanied.

Even yesterday when I had finished writing my sermon, and I was finishing up some work that didn’t require much focus or concentration, I turned on some music to fill the air with sound waves that just added a little distraction to the routine work I was engaged in.

In the quietness of the present, I remember the days when our children were young and they wouldn’t interrupt the silence … they were the background track to our lives.

There was always noise from them, and if there wasn’t, that was not a good thing.

But here I am – no kids, no TV, no iTunes – just me and the clicking of the keyboard.

I have to say, it’s pretty peaceful; it’s calming, unhurried, unforced.

And those words remind me of verses in the Bible, in Matthew 11:28-30, that Eugene Peterson interpreted for “the Message”.

It may be one of the most peaceful passages in the Bible:

“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me – watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”

You might want to read that again, slowly. We could do with a little more peace and quiet in our lives.

Here’s the thing: I don’t need to say much more. Find some quiet in your day – five minutes, ten, whatever you can eek out – and spend some unforced rest with God. It will bring peace into your noisy life.

That’s Life!

Paul

Question: What do you do to find some quiet time? Leave your comments below.

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A Little More Silence, Please!

When I’m studying for a message, the conditions have to be just right.  I wish I was one of those people who could study in any environment – you know, with noise all around, people talking, radio playing, TV blaring – yet seem to be in a quiet zone in their head.

I’ve heard of pastors who study in coffee shops.  That would never work for me … I don’t drink coffee.  Actually, the main reason is I’d get nothing done.  All it would take is for me to look up from my computer and see someone at the counter and I would be distracted.  I’d start wondering what he did for a living, be fascinated at why she picked out that particular outfit, or create a scenario in my mind about that person’s day so far.  Then I would look back at my computer and realize I had drifted from my work for about ten minutes.

What I need is quiet, with as few distractions as possible.  I’ve been known to get distracted by something as small as a piece of lint floating past my computer screen.  If I hear others talking, I want to be part of the conversation.  It takes all my will power not to get up and go and join them.

I have to be in a quiet mood to study, like early in the morning.  It’s then that my mind is not filled with competing thoughts, and tasks.  I can focus on what I’m doing and nothing else.  That’s why I get up early and do my devotions.  It’s quieter in the morning and my mind is quieter.

When that mood gets disrupted, however, it’s game over for me; I might as well pack it in.  My efforts will be wasted, my productivity will plummet, and I’ll start to get all frustrated.  Friday was like that because I had a doctor’s appointment at 9:45 am.

(Oh, I didn’t mention, Friday is the day I finalize my sermon.  If I don’t get it done on Friday, I’ll be working on it on Saturday, my day off … and my wife Lily is not a fan of that!)

When I returned to work after my appointment, the church was a zoo.  Teens were arriving for a youth event on their PA day (I wish I got a few PA days).  It was noisy and distracting, with people in my office, and teens talking, yelling, and running outside my office.  It’s not that I mind it when all that happens.  I like the interaction; I like all the action; I just don’t get anything done.  I thought maybe I should just pack up and go on the “Amazing Race” youth event with them.

They left – finally – and it was quiet, except for my mind – it was racing.  I got back to my sermon but it was slow going after that.  It was past dinner time, when I gave up, packed it in and decided to finish in the morning.

Here’s the thing:  There are so many competing thoughts, appointments, conversations, details, tasks in our day, that it’s difficult to find time to focus on God.  Sometimes it’s best to pack it in and try again tomorrow.  What would be optimal is finding, or rather carving out, some time in your day when you and God will not have to compete with other things.

Until Next Time!

Pastor Paul

Question:  When do you find is the best time to be quiet with God?