Silence heals

I had to go to the hospital yesterday for some testing. As usual, I brought a book with me in case I had to wait. I got to the waiting room, where there was a wall-mounted TV set blaring loud enough that it was impossible to read. There were a number of people in the room already, and their eyes were all glued to the TV—some program with a group of women sitting around a table and talking about . . . well,  nothing. Fortunately, I didn’t have to wait long before my name was called.

This wasn’t an isolated instance. As you probably know yourself, it’s a regular thing now to have television sets playing in waiting rooms for doctors’ offices. I could help thinking how much we are bombarded with noise and with valueless input every place we turn. There are so few places for silence any more. Few places where we can simply sit and think, or pray, or reflect on what is going on in our lives—and, as I’ve often said, these things are necessities in our lives if we are to live from the heart and from the spirit with any sense of self-awareness, recollection or reflection.

Just test your own experience. Even while you are reading these words, is there quiet around you? Or do you have to struggle to keep your focus on what you’re reading at the moment?

Something else happened yesterday. I was in the Abbey church opening up the organ to get ready for Vespers, when a woman came into the church and asked me if it was OK for her to sit there for a while. I invited her to stay for as long as she liked, and she sat down in a choir stall with a heavy sigh, and lowered her head. I thought she might begin to cry, but she didn’t, but she looked overburdened and distressed.

After a few moments she got up and started for the door. As she passed by me she thanked me, and said, “It’s such a wonderful thing to find a place where you can come and breathe in holy.” Just like that.

I smiled and said “God bless you” and she was off. I said a quick prayer for her and I hoped that she would come back to the church another time and perhaps find a sense of security here, and perhaps a place for recollection and rest.

A favorite verse from the psalms came to mind: “In the shadow of your wings I take refuge till the storms of destruction pass by.” (Psalm 57:2)

We need those places of hiding. If possible, we need to create them as well. And we need to provide them for others. Sometime during the day, even if only for 30 seconds, deep down beneath the noise and the distractions, close your eyes and take a deep breath and hide, and rest, and let the Lord speak to your soul in a language without words that can exist only in the silence of our hearts.

God bless you.