Be Still

I’ve always felt that I’m overly sensitive to sounds. I hate the sound of a clock tick tick ticking on a wall or on a wrist, near to me or in another room. The repetition and that sound… are enough to make me want to smash the source into bits. And yet, somehow, I have a fascination with and attraction to clocks and watches and timepieces of many varieties. The irony does not escape me. Hourglasses are a particular favorite, perhaps in part because I cannot hear the sand falling as I can hear a hand moving around the face of clock. I have a clock of some sort in every room in my house, save my walk-in closet, though, is that really a room? The clocks in my bedroom are digital and I can’t have a watch that has a good battery in it ticking away in my room because in the quiet of that space I can hear that soft tick tick ticking and we all know what that makes me want to do. Once I tune into that sound, that ticking, I cannot escape it. It’s there, taunting me and tormenting in its repetition and monotony. All I can hear is that sound and all I can think of is how to get rid of that sound, that irritation, that reminder.

Another sound I loathe, perhaps even more than the repetition of a working timepiece, is the sound of someone eating. They don’t even have to be eating loudly with their mouth open like a child who hasn’t yet learned that eating like that is disgusting and rude and socially unacceptable. I think everyone, with the exception perhaps of those eating that way, can agree that that behavior is reprehensible. However, even the sound of chewing in a quiet room is enough to turn my stomach and chase my appetite far away. Crunching, slurping, smacking. Loathsome sounds, all of them. Loathsome sounds that can drive me into a seething fury quicker than many things. I have known this about myself since I was much younger and I have no explanation for my irritation with this common and necessary sound. We all eat. If we don’t, we die. Nevertheless, it is a maddening frustration I find myself living with. But this is not a rant about things I don’t like.

But I adore music, a variety of music. I am drawn to it. It is a beautiful and moving experience that inspires me more than almost anything. I thoroughly enjoy getting lost in a song, in the lyrics, in the notes, in the emotion of a song that winds its way into my soul one note, one lyric at a time. I ache to get lost in that song, that feeling. I ache to ingest this most beautiful of art forms, to take it into my body somehow so that it scars me, changes me, improves me from the inside out. It is a craving that never stops and can never be fulfilled. It is a constant wanting in me that only ever slightly eases. Some people crave alcohol or sex or drugs or power, but my addiction is to words, to music, to silence. Sometimes the desire for inspiration, to be moved to the very core of my being, brings me to my knees, makes me feel as if I can’t breathe. It is a crushing weight, that need, that ache for . . . words. I want to be moved speechless, breathless, to be humbled, redeemed. But this is not about music and words, at least not mostly.

This is about silence…. More than I hate ticking and the sound of chewing, more than I love words and music, more than these, beyond these, above or below these, it is silence. I had the great fortune of taking a class recently about sound and silence and I learned a lot about myself. Silence can be generally thought of as the absence of sound. Okay. I think we can all agree that sounds right. But does it exist? Is there ever a place or a situation where there is no sound? You can go up in space or down into a cave far underground; you can visit a monastery or find a sound-proof room; you can go to all these places and any others you can imagine and even in these extremes, there is not silence. There may be quiet, but there isn’t silence. In a sound-proof room you will always hear your heartbeat or your breathing. Sure, it’s quiet, much quieter than a regular room, but silence is not present as long as you are. So maybe the silence we are talking about is an ideal, a hope or a fear, that doesn’t actually exist no matter where we go. Maybe the silence we talk about is really more to do with the absence of man-made sounds, like traffic, talking, music, neighbors, technology or industry at work. People talk about getting away, leaving their phones and IPods and TVs and computers and everything behind and enjoying the silence. So maybe this is the silence we want – a place and time without these sounds and the items that produce them. I don’t think many people are much bothered by the sound of wind blowing through the pines or of water lapping against the shore or the crackle of a campfire. I know that’s true for me.

Not long ago I found myself on the snow-covered side of a mountain that was shrouded in a light fog. I have deep appreciation and affection for fog, but that’s another story. I had hiked part way up the mountain on snowshoes with a friend and when we had gone as far as we wanted we stopped for a short while to rest, appreciate our progress, and enjoy the emptiness of the mountain. We’d only seen a few other outdoor enthusiasts that day and it felt like we had the mountain to ourselves. What a delicious feeling, to have all this grandeur and beauty laid out before us as if it was laid that way for us alone. As we sat there chatting on that empty ski run with only the wind rustling through the pines and over the snow, I could not get enough of that quiet. We stopped talking and listened. Have you ever listened to silence? We stood there quiet except for our breathing. The fog was getting thicker and it felt like the quiet was getting heavier somehow. I could have stayed on that mountain, in that quiet place with only the wind whipping ‘round and my breath for sound, with only snow and frost covered trees and deep snow and fog to see in any direction. I breathed in that quiet, held it in for as long as I could, wanting desperately to possess it, to capture it, to bury it so deep in me that I’d never be without it. Despite the cold temperatures that sought to steal the peace I felt so tangibly in that place, I would have stayed as long as the daylight allowed if it had been only me. But that will have to be another time. Our time there, in that place so near to silence, was short and all the more precious for it’s brief duration. Since that day, I have waited and planned and hoped to return, perhaps by myself, perhaps with you, to once again draw as near to silence as I am able.

 

I have always, or at least as far back as my memory goes, longed for the openness of a countryside with views that stretch for miles in any direction. It is in these places, away from people and all the noise they produce, that I find my deepest peace, where all that I long for in a part of me I don’t fully understand, is found and where it finds a home. There is nothing in this world that I have found that gives me the feeling I get in these moments in these places. The depth of these feelings are stronger than my love of music and lyrics and stronger than my loathing of tick tick ticking and someone chewing. This feeling, this longing, this ache, this hunger is like nothing else for me.

Silence is many things to many people. Some people are afraid of it for it is loneliness to them and they feel as if loneliness is only ever a negative place to be. I don’t suppose I know many, or any, people who think that loneliness can sometimes be a gift. I may be alone in that and even I don’t see it that way all the time. It can be a painful feeling that can wreck you to your core. Silence can be scary for some, perhaps filling them with uncertainty and confusion. The silent treatment or a moment of silence before a response, those silences can instill many a person with insecurity and dread. For as many people as you ask about what silence is, you will get as many different responses.

For me, and maybe for some of you, silence or very near silence is a few things. Silence is peace. It is the absence of ticking and chewing and talking and driving and many, many things. It is where I find solace for my restless soul, like a balm on an open wound. It is where I am forced to face myself, in all my humanity – my failings and triumphs, my strengths and weaknesses, my truths and lies, my beauty and ugliness, my joy and pain, my love and hate. In this silence, illusions are stripped away and I am left naked, exposed, vulnerable. All that’s left is me. Just me. All of me. The whole of who I am and who I am not. I can not escape or hide anymore. There. In that place. In that quiet. There… is where my peace is. There… is where He is.

Silence is intimacy. More than love, more than affection, it is intimacy that haunts me, chases me, not quite catching me, teasing me with a promise unfulfilled. It is intimacy I want. With Him. I want that comfortable silence as between lovers who have nothing to hide, nothing to be ashamed of, nothing to prove, nothing to be. To be so diaphanous and free, that… is an indescribable mysterious untouchable beauty. That intimacy, where secrets are shared and contentment is found. It is a place I guard jealously and ferociously. To share it would be a betrayal of the worst kind. Silence is my time alone with the One my soul loves. It is where my peace is, where my fulfillment comes from.

Silence is joy. What joy! To find peace, to find intimacy, that is my joy. I am rarely happier than when I have found silence, wherever it is to be found, whenever it is to be experienced, however it is to be perceived. In that silence that calls to me every moment of every day and every night, beckoning me, pleading with me, seducing me, drawing me ever on, drawing me deeper in, I am intoxicated, I am addicted. I am so far gone that returning is not an option. It is an impossibility. I seek it everywhere I am and everywhere I go with everything I am. I want it in my home. I want it in my life. I want it in my world. I want it forever in my heart, my soul, my mind. Silence. I find it in the wilderness. I find it in the desert and in the forest, on a mountain or in a valley. I find it in my empty room and in my car. I find it in books and movies and music and art. But where I seek to make it my own, to create it, is in my photographs. It is so deeply ingrained in me, this craving for and addiction to silence, that I have been trying to capture silence through the lens of my camera. I want the silence of a street at night, the stillness of a deserted park, the gentleness of a simple touch, I want that. I have surrounded myself with silence, with joy, with intimacy, with peace.

I will go on seeking it. I can’t do anything else, for in finding silence, stillness, solitude, I find me. I find you. I find Him.