Noise shatters being.
Silence knits being.
Both ever present each day.
Early one morning while working from home, I made a discovery. Better wording would be, I found something that I had lost. On this morning, I awakened, did a brief prayer, and did not turn on the radio to listen to the news station. A second choice normally would have been to tune to some jazz or classical music to set a pleasant tone for the day’s dawning. A favorite CD would have been a normal option, too. The triple-paned windows made the crushing sound of the city’s traffic almost inaudible. I was not in a negative mood, but I did not want the intrusion of extra sound in my living space. I was not making conscious choices to have quiet; I just made no effort to invite sound into my space.
Later, as I mindlessly washed the breakfast dishes, slowly the silence dawned on me. My home was quiet. There was no timer clicking from the stove, no ticking of a nearby clock; the iPhone was not humming, chiming, or making any other beckoning sound that I had pre-determined it should make to inform me of texts, emails, appointments, or emergencies. My living space was quiet. The only sound was metal dinnerware softly tapping in the splash of sudsy dish water. Even when I turned on the faucet to rinse the eating utensils and plates, the water fell onto the sink without any splashing sound. (You do not hear the water leaving the faucet and splashing when it falls unto the sink. When I moved into this residence, I left for work one day, only to return home in early evening to fine my faucet faithfully and silently spewing water down the drain. Now, daily, it is the last thing I check before leaving home. Who wants an exorbitant water bill? I digress). Gradually, I came to the realization of a calm within me. There was no effort to search for it; it just made itself known. I was relaxed. No irritating thoughts packed themselves into my mind. Thinking occurred but had my inner being as its focus. There was no rushing to grasp a thought or to hasten to understand it. The thought was just present. There was chain of thoughts, no series of ideas. There was no worry about the body and its fitness. There were no discomforts. So unique was the quiet that it did not need a “to do” list of work. I simply did whatever softly uncurled itself in my mind. My body was relaxed. The was no tightening or hunching of the shoulders. The brows retained their natural arch unbroken by stress pleats between them. Breathing was steady and had new depth. My mind was free to explore new perspectives of the work before me. I just moved from one task to another as though doing a pre-choreographed dance. Body and mind were in sync and moved effortlessly. Without fear or judgements, mind, body, and spirit basked in peace and moved in synergy. I was attentive to the silence and to myself—body, mind, and spirit — and God, too. I had been running so long that I forgot how to stand still.
The next morning, without thinking—without remembering, I attended to the humming, chiming, jiggling, ringing noises of my iPhone, turned on the radio, and tensed over my “to do” list. The day grumbled with screeching demands and constant tension. But my soul remembered the previous day. The traffic thundered pass, the people stampeded by, and every now and then, I sat still in mind, body, and spirit for a minute or so.
Reflections
The loudest noise in the world is silence. Thelonious Monk
- Silence is a source of great strength.
- I’ve begun to realize that you can listen to silence and learn from it. It has a quality and a dimension all its own.
Dorothy Watson Tatem, D.Min., ACC
Senior Associate
Next Step Associates, LLC
Cassandra W. Jones, Ed.D.
CEO & President
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