The Value of Silence

Happy New Year!  I had a wonderful holiday season and I hope my readers did as well.  One thing I love to do is read song lyrics very closely to discover new or different meanings in them.  At different times, different phrases in a song will stand out to me.  So, even if I’ve read certain lyrics many times before, I can often understand them in a new light if I think deeply enough.  This past Christmas, I was singing O Little Town of Bethlehem with my church congregation one Sunday and the words of the third verse stood out to me:

How silently, how silently
The wondrous gift is giv’n!
So God imparts to human hearts
The blessings of his heav’n.
No ear may hear his coming;
But in this world of sin,
Where meek souls will receive him still,
The dear Christ enters in.

The word silently caught my attention.  The first verse also mentions that “the silent stars go by.”  I began pondering what role silence plays (and should play) in my life.  “Silent Night” begins, “Silent night! / Holy night! / All is calm, all is bright.”  There is a deep religious meaning for me in the notion that Christ comes to us silently, so that if we are not spiritually in tune, we can miss His influence in our lives.  He will not force anyone to follow Him.  Rather, He quietly and calmly invites us to come unto Him.

Beyond its religious significance, however, there are other benefits to carving out a certain amount of silence in our lives.  There is so much noise in our world today with smartphones and all manner of other technological devices.  In some respects, we are able to “do more” because of these devices, but how much of that is actually worthwhile and how much of it is a waste of our time?  Are we spending enough time alone with ourselves to come to know ourselves instead of wanting to know everything about everyone else?  These are good questions that we should ask ourselves on occasion.  I have been doing some serious reflection lately about myself and what I want to do in my life.  Self-reflection (and the next step, self-improvement) is hard work and it takes real effort over a period of time.  I have discovered that if I’m distracted by anything, true and honest self-evaluation cannot and does not happen.

I process the world best in silence.  I love to read, which is a solitary and (other than audiobooks) silent activity.  When I was in elementary school, we had “silent reading time” and, honestly, those were my favorite minutes of the day.  In silence, one can think more clearly and more deeply.  This, in my opinion, is the single greatest benefit of silence.

Silence is a rainbow that we all should take advantage of in our lives.  My life can get crazy and overwhelming, so I’m writing this advice to myself as much as to my readers.  We tend to prize most highly that which is hardest to gain (an Olympic gold medal, for example).  It would probably be helpful to look at silence in the same way.

Last but not least, I’d like to share a song with you, sung by the incomparable David Archuleta, called “Who I Am.”  It was written after David had, quite literally, spent two hours in a taxi cab on the way to a songwriting session.  His life as a celebrity is crazy in totally different ways than mine is, but I identify with wanting to get away from life’s craziness sometimes.  I especially love the chorus:

Days like these
It’s hard to breathe
I’m gonna take this moment that I’m in right now
Stop the craziness somehow
Leave it all behind me
And no one’s gonna find me
I got nothing to win and I got nothing to lose
Just trying to walk in my own two shoes
I’ve gotta take the time now
It’s time for me to find out
Who I am

This song encourages me to take time, even in the midst of the craziness of life, to figure out “who I am.”  I hope that it does the same for you.