It’s hard to shut off our internal chatterboxes to listen to silence

By David McElroy · January 6, 2012

Silence is one of the most underrated things in the world. I already knew that in my head, but I experienced it in my heart Thursday. Silence can be powerful.

Theere’s a Catholic monastery not far from where I live, and I used to stop by to visit the chapel there. I’m not Catholic and I’m not one who believes you need to be in a church to pray, but I like the stillness and silence of that chapel. I’d forgotten just how much I like it until I stopped there Thursday afternoon.

Many of us who’ve experienced God in some way spend a good portion of our lives eager to capture — again and again — the essence of an experience with God that’s been meaningful to us. At different points in our lives, we’ve felt the presence of God in a way that is completely unbelievable to someone who hasn’t felt it. But we don’t feel that every day. At least I don’t — and other Christians I talk to don’t feel that “high” feeling all the time, either.

The odd thing is that God is always there. We’re just too busy drowning Him out with everything around us — and especially everything inside us. For me, the biggest distraction I have in experiencing God is shutting up my own incessant inner voice — so that I can hear God in the silence.

Most of the world around us is noisy and busy. We’re listening to radios, televisions, iPods and the other busy sounds of society. Many people say they’re looking for God — listening for His voice — but if they expect some booming deep voice to outshout their television, they’re going to be disappointed.

Mother Teresa pointed to this connection between silence and the things of nature.

“We need to find God, and He cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature — trees, flowers, grass — grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence. We need silence to be able to touch souls.”

God is all around us if we’re able to be quiet and listen. Whether you’re looking for God or not, try to completely silence the noise all around you sometime. Try to shut off the chattering voice inside your own head. Get very quiet. Listen carefully.

You just might be surprised at what you hear. I know that I was surprised Thursday, but I’m always surprised to find that God is right where I left Him the last time I looked.

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On a live awards show Sunday night, one man made a joke about a female celebrity. The husband of the celebrity was offended and hit the man who made the joke. Or maybe it was staged for entertainment. Who knows? Who cares? Social media is full of discussion — and even arguments — about this idiocy today. This baffles me. Let’s assume for a moment that the event happened as reported. People have been having such idiotic fights ever since there have been humans. Half the bars in the world see such brief dustups regularly. It simply doesn’t matter. The fact that so many people believe they need to talk about this — or even need to have opinions about it — is more evidence of the bizarre media brainwashing that convinces many to care passionately about brain-dead trivia. Your life will be happier and saner if you focus on yourself, your family and your friends, not on whatever scripted (or spontaneous) bilge that the media wants to pipe into your home.

I’m in the middle of migrating this website to new servers this week. This means you might encounter some unexpected behavior until I get all the bugs worked out. Clicking on my links (including this one) might cause your browser to give you the message that it’s a site without a current security certificate. It’s not actually unsafe, but there’s something which isn’t yet set up for the security certificate. I apologize for any such errors you might encounter while the process is going on. If you notice any problems with content which didn’t migrate properly, I would appreciate you letting me know the details at davidmcelroy@mac.com. Thanks for your patience.

I often wonder what animals think when they look at us and consider the society we’ve created. Yes, I know this is fanciful and unrealistic, but what if they could? Would they be astounded at how we treat each other? Would they be disgusted by the ugliness and pettiness which fill so many of our daily interactions? The truth is that I’m feeling pretty disgusted with humanity tonight. I made the mistake of reading some online interactions that I should have avoided — and it sickened me. The people involved appeared to be vile and stupid and arrogant. I wish I could pretend they’re a tiny minority, but I know better. It’s times such as this when I most need to escape much of “civilization” and disconnect from their world. If humans are going to be worthy of “ruling this planet,” we have a lot of growth to do. And I fear that growth is nowhere in sight. So my buddy Thomas, above, and all of his friends would be right to judge us harshly — and to think, “Why do you folks get to be in charge?”

I should have expected this, but I honestly didn’t. The article I wrote last week about disagreements over treatment for autistic children brought me angry emails. You could almost call it “hate mail.” Of the five emails about it so far, two have been to tell me that I’m wrong to even listen to critics of the most popular therapy for autistic children — and the other three tell me I’m wrong for not condemning the treatment as the “obvious” abuse it is. If you read the article, you know I didn’t take a position on the issue, because I simply don’t know enough to have an opinion. But by talking about the issue, I stepped into a heated controversy. The emails from the two sides convinced me of nothing. But they did give me even more empathy for the unfortunate parents who have to figure out for themselves where the truth lies for their children.

Have you ever had what you thought was a new idea — and then discovered that “old you” had the same idea years ago? I had that experience tonight. And it’s been wonderful. I came up with an idea tonight for a very short satirical film that would be a promotion for a fictitious college. The point is to make the college promote — as good things — everything which is actually terrible about most modern colleges. Then I remembered a fake college that I invented back when I was in college. I had created student recruitment brochures and various newsletters back then, so I decided to call my “new” college by the same name I’d invented years ago: Ochita College. As I searched my computer for any old material I might still have about Ochita from the past, I discovered an email I sent to someone in 2009 — outlining essentially the same idea which I came up with tonight. Since I didn’t remember writing that, it felt like magic. So my next film project just might be this one instead. If all goes well, you might soon see “Ochita College: Your Future Starts Here.” This should be fun.

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