{"id":40636,"date":"2026-09-15T21:49:14","date_gmt":"2026-09-16T02:49:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/?p=40636"},"modified":"2026-09-15T21:49:14","modified_gmt":"2026-09-16T02:49:14","slug":"i-cant-hear-a-still-small-voice-when-i-wont-silence-the-world","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/?p=40636","title":{"rendered":"I can\u2019t hear a \u2018still small voice\u2019 when I won\u2019t silence the world"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I want to tell everybody to shut up. It\u2019s not personal, though.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know whether to shout or whisper. It doesn\u2019t really matter, because it\u2019s an entire culture that I want to be quiet, not this person or that person.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m not angry with anybody. There\u2019s nobody in particular who I want to shut up. It\u2019s chaotic voices and public background music and blaring televisions. But it\u2019s visual \u201cnoise,\u201d too. It\u2019s flickering screens of all kinds. It\u2019s beeping phones and computers and mobile devices. It\u2019s constant notifications.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a culture that demands my attention and won\u2019t leave me alone.<\/p>\n

When I\u2019m honest with myself, though, I realize that I\u2019m the problem. I have the ability to shut this cacophony off at any time. But I refuse to take control of my life and my environment. I think I can be the master of my media culture.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m so addicted to what has come to seem normal that I\u2019m like an alcoholic who thinks he can have just one drink. Or maybe two.<\/p>\n

But in the rare moments when I can listen to my own spirit, I know I\u2019m making this way too complicated. It\u2019s not about the noise and the screens and the notifications.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s about silence. I desperately need to find silence for my heart and my mind \u2014 so I can hear the still small voice that whispers truth and love and wisdom when I\u2019m quiet enough to hear it.<\/p>\n

This isn’t a new discovery for me.<\/p>\n

For the last 15 years or so, I keep thinking about it and writing about it, but I never seem to do anything to actually change my life.<\/p>\n

Every time I push against the culture \u2014 and try to find the silence I need \u2014 I find a slightly healthier mental space in which to live. But then I get mentally lazy. I start wondering about the chaotic world I’ve left behind. I think I can imbibe the culture in moderation. Surely a little bit won’t hurt. And before I know it, I\u2019m immersed in a culture that takes so much and gives me so little.<\/p>\n

So I end up circling back to here, trying to figure out how to get it right.<\/p>\n

The longer I live, the more I understand some traditional monastic practices \u2014 such as silence \u2014 that once seemed inexplicable.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m also understanding why some groups \u2014 such as the Amish \u2014 take steps to avoid many technological changes. I don\u2019t want to be a monk. I don\u2019t want to be Amish. But I understand where some of their core practices came from \u2014 and I understand how I could benefit from being more like them in some ways.<\/p>\n

When I first ran across the idea of monastic silence, I found it odd. I was young enough that I still saw the world in terms of value being added by the addition of information. What possible good could come from simply being quiet? It made no sense to my immature mind.<\/p>\n

The longer I live, the more I understand that value is often added by silencing things that shouldn’t be there. I’ve experienced so much noise and distraction that I find myself longing for silence.<\/p>\n

I find myself thinking about monasteries of the past \u2014 before electricity and radios and smartphones and a million other modern conveniences \u2014 and imagining how appealing that silence must have been.<\/p>\n

Maybe the silence and the lack of stimulation \u2014 and the devotion to worship and prayer \u2014 wouldn’t be the boring life we imagine. Maybe the tradeoff gave those people a life far richer than the chaos that’s around me every day in modern life.<\/p>\n

There’s a Catholic monastery between my house and my office that has a chapel where I sometimes stop to pray. Outside the entrance to the chapel is a simple sign \u2014 the one you see above \u2014 that instructs those who enter to observe silence.<\/p>\n

When I’m in that chapel, I can hear myself think in the silence. I can be quiet for an hour and take the time to listen for a God who I’m often too distracted to hear.<\/p>\n

When I’m there, I appreciate the silence. I don’t need more entertainment. I don’t need more theological instruction. I don’t need greeters to slap my back and shake my hand.<\/p>\n

I find tremendous value in the silence there. I’m not a Catholic, but I think the rest of my fellow Christians could learn a lot from the monastic tradition and from the value that many Catholics have traditionally given to silence.<\/p>\n

When I’m in that silent chapel, my spirit is enriched. My mind grows quieter. My heart is lighter and happier.<\/p>\n

And then I walk out to my car and drive right back to the chaotic world that drowns out the voice I need to hear and deadens my senses.<\/p>\n

I don’t want to become a monk. I don’t even want to become a hermit. But I have to find a realistic way to silence the noise around me.<\/p>\n

I don’t need more information or entertainment. I need silence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I want to tell everybody to shut up. It\u2019s not personal, though. I don\u2019t know whether to shout or whisper. It doesn\u2019t really matter, because it\u2019s an entire culture that I want to be quiet, not this person or that person. I\u2019m not angry with anybody. There\u2019s nobody in particular who I want to shut Keep Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-uncategorized","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1x9iR-azq","jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40636"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40636\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40639,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40636\/revisions\/40639"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}