Since starting divinity school, my already busy day-to-day life has become an even more rigorous and demanding experience. There’s no getting around the work that must be completed and the accompanying whirlwind of activities in which I find myself. Even the reflection that I do is structured and purposeful—a means to an end.
And all of that activity is good. But it’s also very noisy. Whether it’s external noise or internal chatter, I have found that moments of real silence are increasingly hard to come by.
And it is for this reason that, for 36 hours this past weekend, I retreated to a cabin in the middle of the woods, soaking in the silence of the natural world. People are such loud creatures, and most of the noise we make is a by-product of some other activity—usually trying to get from point A to point B as quickly as possible.
I believe that we get so lost in the noise that it is almost impossible for us to recognize the presence of anything truly important.
Acoustic ecologist Gordon Hempton wrote, “Silence is not the absence of something, but the presence of everything.” In other words, silence allows us to be aware of a presence that we cannot otherwise perceive. When this presence is lost, I believe we have lost our center.
The silence of the woods allowed me to be in the presence of a large oak tree towering over the cabin, shedding leaves in the afternoon sunlight, recycling itself and transforming light to earth and earth to light.
If we are to be witnesses to the presence of something beyond the chatter of our minds and roar of the highway, I commend to you, one and all, silence. Find it where you can, as often as you can; live in it and learn from it.
All the books in the world, all the lectures, all the busy doing of our lives will get us only so far. The quiet of the silent oak is by far the greatest teacher I have recently encountered.
