“It’s so quiet here…”

He’s come from the city to our home in the suburbs to work on a project…

He stops and looks around…

“Quiet,” he says again. “Peaceful.”

Quiet?

Peaceful?

I haven’t noticed.

We have a lot to do today.

Everything has to be finished in a few hours…

I think through the list again…

Then I think about the consequences if we’re late…

Pressure.

The noise inside my head drowns out the quiet…

The noise grows…

And moves into my soul.

For me there is no quiet.

There is no peace.

There is only noise…

My friend notices the absence of external noise…

The noise of this world …

There’s plenty of noise of this world …

“[The modern age] knows nothing about isolation and nothing about silence. In our quietest and loneliest hour, the automatic ice-maker in the refrigerator will cluck and drop an ice cube, the automatic dishwasher will sigh through its changes, a plane will drone over, the nearest freeway will vibrate the air. Red and white lights will pass in the sky, lights will shine along highways and glance off windows. There is always a radio that can be turned to some all-night station, or a television set to turn artificial moonlight into the flickering images of the late show…― Wallace Stegner, Angle of Repose

Sometimes the noise of this world fills our minds…

until it spills over into our souls…

Standing like a solid wall between our souls and the peace of God…

How do we quiet the noise of this world?

“In the rush and noise of life, as you have intervals, step home within yourselves and be still. Wait upon God, and feel His good presence; this will carry you evenly through your day’s business.”  William Penn

“Be still, and know that I am God; Psalm 46:10