You would think it would be easy to be in the here-and-now when you are housebound.
My ‘here’ is very comfortable: lemon walls, white cupboards, two pillows on my bed, the birds starting to sing for morning. Spring is tentatively tiptoeing in, bruised by all the snow and rain.
But the ‘there’ creeps in too.
The ‘there’ is important: friends, relationships, appointments, dreams, plans. I tap on my iPad, and the sound is satisfying. I click, and it feels important. I am lying down, but I am opening doors, creating worlds, laughing with friends. There is the noise of words on the screen even in the silence of the house, and these distract me from the alone-ness.
And then, there are times like today, where I stop and I feel that silence creeping through the net curtains.
When so many are calling your name, how will you know that it is not Eli, but the Lord?
Here I am. Speak, Lord, your servant is listening.
It’s the return of Five-minute-Friday! This was my best five minutes on ‘here’.
Over to you:
- How do you feel about silence?
- To what extent are you pushing God’s voice out with the noise and busyness of your daily life?
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When I can’t hear God’s voice–and being able to hear it is my most important survival skill–then I am tempted to think it’s ALL noise. I am filling my soul with the unimportant rather than the supremely important. Then, when I have sense, I tune out all the noise of social media and my own mind, close my computer, lie face down, as I imagine Samuel was doing, and tune in. Try to listen, try to hear. Speak, Lord, your servant is listening!
Hi Tanya,
You write eloquently, and manage to communicate your situation so very convincingly.
Your invitation to comment on silence got me thinking. (Hmm, that meant for my ability to only be able to do one thing at a time; being silent).
Being silent was a foreign country to me. Even when suffering with depression related chronic fatigue, I had to be doing something.
Unable to do anything else, I would listen to music, my attention wandering like the sun emerging and disappearing behind the clouds on a showery Plymouth day.
Being brought up to have a strong work ethic is half of the reason why I was compelled to be doing at all times, running away from myself was the other half.
I never gave myself the opportunity to listen, really listen; to God.
Last Christmas I was forced into inactivity by being bed ridden with influenza. Even listening to the radio proved too much.
It was during a time when I was completely alone and silent that Jesus came and sat with me. I HAD A TANGIBLE EXPERIENCE OF HIS PRESENCE. I was ill and exhausted, but happy and at peace; AND NOT LONELY.
As you know I have written about this experience in the essay, “My Christmas Companion.”
I sometimes wonder if the epidemic of depression in the developed world is partly attributable to our inability to find the opportunity to be silent. It seems as rare as a precious metal. This perhaps gives a whole new meaning to the proverb, “Speech is Silver, but Silence is Golden.” (As translated from Sartor Resartus by Thomas Carlyle).
I am not that well read, I have just done an internet search of the proverb to ascertain its origin and context.
God bless you.
Thank you, John.
I’m glad to hear that I’m not the only one who’s ill but needs the distraction!
And I love the way you described the transformative presence of Jesus with you. I think that is the type of silence we crave with God – the kind where we’re sitting alongside someone we love and know well, and there are no words but their presence is comforting, and tangible, just as you say. Thank you for sharing that on this space.