Be Still and Know: The Importance of Silence
Young adults recognize the value of silence as they pray during adoration at the Vocation Awareness Program weekend of discernment on June 14, 2024. The event was held at the University of Dallas in Irving. (NTC/Ben Torres)
Our world is noisy. Just as an exercise, I want you to pause for a minute; try and count all of the different sounds you hear. At the moment, we don’t care if the sounds belong to the subcategories of “music” or “noise.” It’s all sound.
How many could you count? I’d bet at least four or five, depending heavily, of course, on where you’re reading this. Even still, the relative quiet of somewhere like your office or bedroom isn’t truly silent, and silence is what I’d like to talk about.
I scrolled past the thumbnail of a YouTube video a while back that got me thinking once more about the issue of silence (and I’m using the word “issue” for a reason). From the title, I could tell the video was going to discuss the slow and, in a way, paradoxically “silent” erasure of truly silent places from the modern world. I didn’t watch it because I’ve been acutely aware of this phenomenon for quite some time.
On the whole, we seem to be growing increasingly uncomfortable with the idea of silence as a culture. This perhaps stems from the easily fallen into yet erroneous perception than an “absence” is the same as a “lack.”
In a culture as overstimulated as ours currently is, we’ve become accustomed to filling every square inch of dead air with sound of some sort, so much so that we turn antsy and anxious when this isn’t the case.
If you’ve ever happened to be inside a place of business nowadays that isn’t piping music over whatever form of speaker system is available, it’s likely the first thing you notice when you walk through the door; it’s weird. Even if you prefer it, I’ll wager your brain will still subject you to the initial shock.
It seems that we are in constant need of some form of background entertainment or distraction, lest we be left with nothing to listen to but our own thoughts. It may be that this is at the core of the issue: we are finding our thoughts, as a generalization, less and less pleasant to hear.
Increasingly, silence is becoming a thing we must work to create for ourselves, rather than it being the default state to which our environments will inevitably return. If we are at all serious about maintaining a healthy spiritual life in this noisy world, then it is imperative that we find ways to introduce silence, in one form or another, into our daily lives.
Even though defined primarily as the absence of sound, silence can take on a much more figurative meaning, as well. While the only truly silent place may be the vacuum of space, it is ultimately an internal “silence” that we must cultivate in order to better hear the voice of God.
This process can begin with something as simple as being more intentional regarding when and where we listen to any form of audio, whether that be music, audiobooks, or soundscapes. When you find yourself experiencing the urge to put something on in the background, stop and ask yourself why. Do you actually want to listen to that particular thing for what it is? Will it help you relax and de-stress? Or could this feeling be coming from a more compulsive place?
Perhaps dedicating an hour or so of time before going to bed at night, or an hour or so after waking up in the morning, to having no additional auditory stimulation would open up space for prayer and recollection.
Although true, literal silence might be just as undesirable as constant noise, there exists an ideal space somewhere in-between that enables peace, enables contemplation. I believe that many people are afraid of what they might find in that space, so they choose to keep it constantly clogged with something. However, as Scripture tells us, the voice of God is “a light silent sound” (1 Kings 19:12). So let’s be silent ourselves, in order that we might hear Him.