Tag Archives: noise

A little quiet please

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Only a keyboard, guitar, and sometimes bass guitar.  Just the sound of clear voices and lilting melodies, an evening well spent.  I wish there were more like that.  I enjoyed the concert by Audrey Assad and JJ Heller (and her husband) so much and one of the biggest reasons was the simplicity and the quiet.  No giant stadium with thousands of people, but a church sanctuary with 200-300.  No electric guitars or drums or booming sound that makes your heart pound, but personal songs easily heard and understood.

I have nothing against loud music, being a big fan of that myself sometimes, but more and more my heart yearns for quietness.  It seems as I grow older I long for it more and more.  I wonder why?  I refuse to believe it’s because I’m not hip or cool anymore.  I don’t think it’s because I have narrow opinions or are old-fashioned.  I think it’s because the longer I live life amidst the clamoring of the world, the more I crave getting away, a reprieve, moments when there is nothing blaring at me and wI can think.  Sometimes, it’s because I’m tired.  When I’m tired I don’t want noise, I want stillness and solitude.

Jesus often went away by himself to pray and I’m sure to collect His thoughts, to process things that were happening and were going to happen, and to stay near God, his Father.  When I hear God’s voice whispering to me to come away and be quiet and I don’t do it, an agitated restlessness starts taking over.  If I try to soothe that agitation with other things, people, or activities it doesn’t work.  For some reason I just can’t give myself permission to stop “doing things” and rest.  That is a problem I need to let Jesus help me solve because it takes its toll.

Today I don’t feel well and I think it’s one of God’s ways of stopping me and forcing me to just be still and enjoy quiet.  Last night was the perfect head start.

The sun is shining outside and I hear one of my porch chairs calling my name.  I think I’ll take a book, in case I want to read, but mostly I think I’ll sit, soak in warm sunlight and stare out into the green grassy yard.  Thank you, Jesus, for quiet. You’re going to sit with me, too, right?

Only in returning to me
    and resting in me will you be saved.
In quietness and confidence is your strength.  Isaiah 30:15  NLT

 It’s useless to rise early and go to bed late, 
      and work your worried fingers to the bone. 
   Don’t you know he enjoys 
      giving rest to those he loves?  Psalm 127:2-3 The Message

What did you say?

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I work in an Ear, Nose & Throat practice which also houses an audiology department, which specializes in helping people hear better.  There is an awful lot of “What did you say??” and “Say that again, please” and “You have to speak up, I can’t hear you” going on every day.  To top that off, I also have radar ears – ears that strain to hear what’s going on around me so I don’t miss anything.  I guess this could also be categorized as nosiness, but I prefer to call it being aware.  Right?

This can cause problems for me because if the person in front of me, the patient, is telling me something and my ears are also listening to the conversation behind me so I know what’s going on with my co-workers, I invariably have to ask the patient to repeat themselves because I lose focus.  I’m not so great at multi-task listening.  There are times, too, when several of us at the front desk are dealing with several hard of hearing people and the noise level grows so that it’s tricky to hear what we need to hear from the patient we’re trying to help.

I need to just keep my ears “turned” toward the person who’s most important in that moment, the patient, and listen intently just to their voice.

I just read from John 10:27 this morning in which Jesus said Continue reading →

The noise upstairs

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It just gets too quiet sometimes around our house these days.  Now that two of our girls are in college and our youngest is gone often with friends, I miss those sounds I’ve loved all throughout our life.  I miss the sounds of the girls giggling, talking, singing in their rooms or playing instruments, playing video games, having friends in and putting on plays, running in and outside the house, and just life.  I miss the sound of them walking up and down the stairs, doing dishes in the kitchen while singing to their iPod, typing away on the computer keyboard across the room, talking on their phones, or even watching TV.  Those sounds let me know my girls were home.

Last weekend all my girls were here, along with my oldest daughter’s boyfriend.  As John and I went to bed at night, I heard their footsteps upstairs, Continue reading →