Quiet / Silence

When was the last time you experienced an extended period of silence? Not the quiet where the radio is softly playing in the next room and the neighbor's dog isn't barking at the moment. I mean when there is no sound and everything is still.

I'm just back from 4 days in the foothills of the Ozarks, where for hours all I heard was an occasional fish or frog jumping in the lake or one cicada saying hey to another. I never heard the guest in the next room. Seriously, no one walking in the hallway, taking a shower or blaring the TV. No sense of anyone around me. Even our workshop's topic led to classroom silence as we participants dabbed colors on watercolor paper and sketched indoors and out. I felt like I was on a silent retreat and that became the best part of the week.

Quiet means 'marked by little or no activity, disturbance or tumult; calm; secluded.' Silence is 'the absence of any sound; stillness; to put doubt and fear to rest.' As I pondered the difference between quiet and silence, I realized my spirit needed to quiet so I could experience the silence. I reflected that in the last several months I have been deliberate about both silence and quiet, something quite different for someone who for most of her life has had music playing in the background. I didn't know I was preparing for the gift of four nights and three days of calm, stillness and seclusion.

How do quiet and silence play out in your life? Could you use one or both a little more or a little less? Does such a thought delight or scare you? Take a quiet minute to think about that and if you'd like to do anything about it today or this week. For me, I'm planning to keep some intentional times of quiet and silence. I had fairly low expectations for a class called "Life is a canvas" where the theme was watercolor and sketchbook journaling because I have little patience for or skill in watercolor. I didn't expect to come home with anything framable. What I didn't know was that I would come home in a peaceful frame of mind. That's even better.

Marilyn