White Noise

How do you shed the busy brain? Do you retrain it? Discipline it?

How do you be still in your thoughts?


For my entire adolescent and adult life I have had an ongoing exercise wheel squeaking in my head as my thoughts run in full circle going nowhere and finding no end to their journey.

Some thoughts complete themselves. Others just keep running hoping to find the end of themselves.

I wonder if the Apostle Paul had this problem. Maybe that is why he was a scribe (I like to think of a scribe as a Bible-day writer except with more education). At least the written word allows the thoughts a vehicle to go somewhere. Perhaps that is why I write.

I read once that “Silence is solitude practiced in action.” (unknown)

I read a story recently that impacted me. There was a harried executive who went to the desert hermit and complained about his frustration in prayer, his flawed virtue, and his failed relationships. The hermit listened closely to this man’s struggle through the Christian life. Then he went into his cave and brought out a bowl. “Now watch the water as I pour it into the basin,” he said. The water splashed on the bottom and against the sides of the bowl agitated and in turmoil. At first the stirred up water swirled around the inside of the bowl, then gradually began to settle. Finally the small ripples evolved into larger swells.



Eventually the surfaced became so smooth that the executive could see his face reflected in the calm water. “That is the way it is when you live constantly in the midst of others,” said the hermit. “You do not see yourself as you really are because of all the confusion and disturbance. You fail to recognize the divine presence in your life and the consciousness of your belovedness slowly fades.”

Trying to be still in your soul requires waiting. A Holy waiting and watching.

When we are liberated from dependence on people, busy thoughts, and even the white noise of life we can truly see and sense how God sees us. Holy silence drowns out other’s opinion of us; for when we are truly silent all we hear is our breath syncing with God’s heartbeat.

I don’t know if shedding the noise of life is possible, but I want to try – one silent moment at a time.