The Silence of Holidays

The holiday season begins tomorrow with Thanksgiving, a star-wrapped and studded lineup of celebrations, parties, and endless shopping that will deposit me on January 6th feeling thankful, exhausted, and wondering if I am better for it.

The woods behind my house have a different idea. Instead of packing my schedule and trying to fit every event in, the woods beckon me to sit in silence. They call me to sit and think about what has gone on this year in my life. They call me to think about the lives of others and what they might need, not in terms of physical gifts, but in terms of presence, encouragement, and help with some struggle. The truth is, I don’t know if everyone really needs a new waffle iron this year. Sue might like a box of tea and an afternoon drinking the first serving with me. Steve might like to share a walk along Lake Mendota and catch up on how our lives have shifted this year. Jeff might like a helping hand for a day as he cleans up his basement and organizes it into a writing space that will enable him to finally sit down and write his book.

The holidays are not about the tinsel. They’re about slowing my activities down, not speeding them up.
They’re about listening to myself and to others. One evening after a worship service I walked around town as six inches of snow was falling, muffling the sounds of the occasional car going by. I walked by houses with windows and people inside lit up in warm light and celebrating. I kept walking and went down to the river and listened to nature, to the sounds of the water flowing past, to the ducks and geese in the distance, and the quietness of the trees. It was a silence filled with the most amazing sounds, thoughts, and feelings of hope.

Silence

It sounds odd that we don’t think it odd to regard silence as deficient and not as full. We fill our ears and the air with banter, music, news, and weather updates until we fall exhausted into bed, the sounds of the day ringing in our heads, and feeling unsatisfied because we have said much but heard relatively little that we want to remember. In the manner of the Quakers, we should remain silent until we have something important to say.

Words and music are powerful influences on us. The music playing in the background of a movie can heighten our experience of it. Often we use music to make life seem fuller, thinking that our walk down the street needs a soundtrack. Sometimes when we’re just chatting with friends, a wrong word is said and our friendship is suddenly put on hold.

It can be unsettling to be home alone without the TV or radio on to fill the spaces. We hear all the sounds of the house--the refrigerator coming on, the house creaking in the wind, the hum that comes from an unknown place, and we wonder if something is about to blow up.

It takes me a couple of days of camping before I can hear the different sounds of nature, and then to hear my thoughts beneath the surface chatter. I begin to know what I’m feeling instead of being led through a dozen emotions in quick succession by songs on the radio until I lose track of where I am. The longer I listen to silence, the more I hear the songs moving through my life and feel the rhythm that my feet want to dance upon the earth.

This morning I walked outside and thought I heard the quiet sounds of a creek trickling where I knew there was no water. Listening closer, I realized it was the breeze cascading over the surface of leaves in the woods.