I experienced true silence on South Sister about half way up, before you get out on the ridge where the wind is blowing, we stopped for a break and someone remarked on how quiet it was and we stopped! We were silent for like 3 minutes, and it was hard at the beginning, the awkwardness of silence was hard to overcome. But after a minute there was an overwhelming calm, a pervading peace and I could feel God. There was no cars, no factories, no music, no television, no talking. I could barely hear my heartbeat and that was it, and it was then that I experienced God. I can't even get this silence on hikes around the area. You can still here the city and it's noise and turmoil. I definitely can't do it at home, why would I be silent when I have an Ipod full of music? and a T.V. with 500 channels? And beer! Beer can drown out the silence really well.
Why do I want to keep the silence down? I think I am scared of silence, because it makes me vulnerable, it forces me to reflect on myself. Instead of just looking at other people and they're crap, I have to look at my own. That is when God steps in, that is when I am experienced.
But that is just me.
In my painting class, our instructor told us that we might spend class time meditating...sitting in silence and stillness for an hour, staring at your feet, or the grass, or the corner of a wall.
ReplyDeleteEven before then, I thought it would be fascinating to sit without moving or speaking for 2 hours, just because.
I wonder if we would even be able to do that...us Americans, over-saturated and bombarded with noise.
We might fill up with thoughts and become ADD to the point of exploding!