You know what I’ve decided?
Americans are terrified of silence.
Apparently, if we go more than 30 seconds without hearing something, watching something or scrolling through something, civilization might collapse.
We have televisions playing in the background when nobody is watching them. Radios fill our cars with noise. Earbuds pump music, podcasts and videos directly into our brains.
Then, after surrounding ourselves with noise all day, we buy sound machines to make MORE noise so we can fall asleep.
Think about that.
We need noise to drown out the noise because silence is apparently too disturbing.
You see groups of young people sitting together, each wearing earbuds or staring at a phone rather than talking to the human beings sitting three feet away.
Families gather around dinner tables with everyone staring at their own devices.
Even churches seem uncomfortable with silence.
At church today, the pastor invited us to spend some time in “quiet communication” with God. Wonderful!
Except someone with an electric guitar immediately started playing pulsating chords in the background.
Apparently, God needed a soundtrack.
Communion can be even worse. The pastor invites everyone to quietly examine their lives, pray and listen for that still, small voice of God.
Then, as soon as he steps away, four vocalists, three electric guitars, two keyboards and a drummer launch into a joyful noise powerful enough to drown out the Second Coming.
Whatever happened to simply being quiet?
I remember my grandmother starting her day sitting on the porch with a cup of coffee. No television. No radio. No phone.
She would just rock quietly and think.
Years ago, when I lived in Wisconsin, I made a point of taking time off every May and September, before the vacation crowds arrived.
I’d spend a few days alone at a campground without electronics or media. I’d bring a book and a pad of paper. That was it.
And you know what? Silence is refreshing.
It gives your brain room to wander. It gives your soul room to breathe.
Great ideas often arrive in silence. So do solutions to problems that seemed impossible when our minds were drowning in distractions.
Sometimes we need to stop consuming other people’s thoughts long enough to hear our own.
I’m Grandpa Grumpy. When was the last time you sat somewhere for 30 minutes without a television, radio, phone, music or podcast playing?
And why has silence become something we’re so desperate to escape?