The Sounds of Silence

I heard a morning (mourning?) dove today. The lonesome wistful sound is so familiar and poignant. I heard it because the TV and radio were off. Madeliene L'Engle says, "We need both for our full development: the joy of the sense of sound and the equally great joy of its absence."

How did our world get so noisy? We allowed it. I remember when I first heard elevator music in the elevator at Minter's Department Store in Abilene. I thought it was an intrusion. We are no longer comfortable with silence, and some of our children have no first-hand knowledge of it. Much has been written about the demise of the front porch. I think silence "demised" when everybody moved inside.

Silence makes us more attentive to the little sounds which make our life more comfortable and enjoyable--the rhythmic ticking of the clock, the songs of birds outside an open window, the sizzling of bacon, the tune played by the coffee pot, and the padded thump of little feet coming down the stairs.

What can we do? For starters, turn everything off: the TV, the radio, cell phone, telephone, fax machine, cd player. Practice quiet moments around what one author calls "the edges of the day." Begin and end with silence. More tomorrow.