In the 1960's Simon and Garfunkel I think were way ahead of their time. Their classic song, Sound Of Silence, opened up with the line of
Hello Darkness My Old Friend.
We should all have a friend in darkness. Not the spiritual opposite of Light in our lives but the quiet that is getting harder and harder to connect to in our heavily multi-tasking lives. Do you know while multi-tasking and sensory overload is GREAT in many respects from productivity and getting things done it can be disastrous in one on one relationships, your peace of mind, and the restfulness of your body and soul? FINDING quiet is increasingly difficult in today's modern society, turning handheld devices, TVs, computers off.
I think why many of our hard working families crave the beach or mountain or vacation to Yellowstone is to break the rhythm up in our lives, to disconnect for awhile to search out some peace and quiet. It is hard to listen when we are saying we are hearing when there is background noise as distraction. As good as we might think we may have progressed as good listeners, without immersing yourself in TRUE quiet from time to time, your brain and soul will never get a rest that it so sorely needs.
Some might say with modern living, with a house full of teenage kids, with clients barking at us from three kinds of devices, with social media popping up at every turn, a Pandora's box has been opened up and we can't ever again go back to quiet. I disagree. One time I was driving between very tiny towns in west Texas which is lightly populated between Ft. Stockton and Alpine. They even have an astronomical telescope out there it is so far out in the middle of nowhere. I actually stopped the car, hadn't seen any other car in 30 minutes, got out, and LISTENED to the sound of silence. I take myself back to that place often as a reminder that quiet really does exist in the world. It was like a spiritual experience for me that the world was truly all to myself.
Seek out quiet somewhere in your life from time to time even with just another person letting them do all the talking. It is amazing what that darkness, that quiet will do to rejuvenate your soul. Make darkness your friend.
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