Silence

January 1, 2012. Crazy, eh? It seems like I just started another school year, and here I am, already mid-way. Because of the significance of last night being New Year’s Eve, I found myself sitting back on the couch last night, reflecting. What was good about 2011? What things should I change?

As I flipped through my journal entries of the past few months, I was yet again amazed at how often God teaches me the same lessons. I just don’t seem to get it on the first go-round! I have been so busy as of late (teaching, coaching, taking classes) that I have not really had time to sit and process all that has happened. And as I read, I was struck with a few themes of 2011.

What made these themes stick out even more was the fact that just before reading my journals, I watched the movie Contact. It was actually quite well done, and will help to provide lots of conversation starters in my upcoming Film & Worldview class. I’ve never watched a movie that slowly before (except for Planet Earth :))…I kept pausing it and taking notes.

There are many themes to discuss within this movie – faith & science, the pros and cons of technology, how to determine truth, etc. But what stuck out to me last night was how the movie makers employed two ideas that carried through the entire movie: Silence & Loneliness.
And those were the same two themes (among others) that kept popping up in my journals.

CONTACT

Many movies have soundtracks that enhance the film’s action as we watch. Loud music during fight scenes, the “uh-oh” music (technical term there) when you know the bad guy is about to come on the scene, the inspirational music that plays while beautiful panoramic shots cover the screen….

In Contact, however, there was (comparatively) a lot of silence.
And that fits…because silence often means that you are alone.

Within the first three minutes, we are given a powerful dramatization of how small we are compared to the universe. We later find out that Doctor Ellie Arroway, played by Jodie Foster, has been alone since the age of 9. Later in life, as a scientist, she is so focused on discovering intelligent extra-terrestrial life that she alienates many around her. (Haha. I’m a little proud of the irony of that last sentence.) And when she finally makes contact with alien life, the theme comes up again. The extra-terrestrials tell her:
Your species is “capable of such beautiful dreams and such horrible nightmares. You feel so lost, so cut off, so alone. Only you’re not.”
When Ellie returns, she testifies to others that she saw a vision of the universe:
“…that tells us undeniably how tiny and insignificant…and rare and precious we all are. A vision that tells us we belong to something that is greater than ourselves. That we are not…that none of us…are alone.”
And as the movie closes, we see Ellie, sitting on the edge of a canyon, contemplating life, remembering her encounter with the extraterrestrials…yet still very much alone.

Oh – there are so many things that we could discuss about this movie: the fact that if we truly believe this world/universe is all there is (materialism), it is quite a sad and lonely place no matter how many people we share it with. There’s just…death. Where does meaning come from? And the fact that the intelligent people in the movie assume that the life from outer space is more intelligent than we are, yet it’s a stretch for many to believe that there may be a God is more intelligent than them. The movie seems to portray people who believe in God as people committing intellectual suicide and not following where the empirical evidence leads…but in reality, all empirical evidence leads to a point where one must accept things by faith…the question then is, which is most reasonable to place our faith in? Then there’s the fact that Jodie Foster plays a moral scientist who doesn’t believe in God and therefore gives up a basis for morality.

But I digress.

Because what I really want to write about are the themes of Silence and Loneliness as they relate to the Bible and my life over the past year.

Does silence really mean that we are alone?

MY JOURNALS

This past year, my life has been full of “noise”. I’ve been running to and fro, joining and doing this and that. I’ve been told that I need to learn the art of saying “NO”. But, it’s a hard thing to learn. :)

As I read through my journals, I kept seeing the theme of silence & quiet popping up. Back at Easter of this year, I wrote in my journal about a Tenebrae service I attended. And what stuck out to me about it was the silence. I wrote: “I really like it, actually. And yet, there are times when it can be deafening.”

Why would silence be hard to handle?

Stillness. Quietness. Silence. Those aren’t things our culture looks fondly upon. Silence causes us to think, and we would much rather be distracted.

And yet we see Jesus – a man who we as Christians are supposed to emulate – going out on mountainsides to pray, spending the night praying to God (Luke 6:12). I try to pray for more than 15 minutes and find I struggle with the silence and with getting distracted. But is silence in prayer a bad thing?

Check out this verse:
“Be still and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth.” (Psalm 46:10 – NIV)

Back in September, I wrote about how it seems like it would be hard to spend the whole night in prayer. Yet, it’s not hard to talk to someone you love for hours upon end. AND, it’s also okay to sit in silence with someone you know well. (Like driving in a car…with someone you don’t know…the silence is incredibly awkward. With someone you do…it can be quite peaceful). That made me think: Is being still and knowing that God is God only truly possible when I spend a large amount of time with God? Because only in the most familiar places is silence comfortable.

Silence doesn’t mean God is not there.

“But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.” Luke 5:16

It may seem lonely to others. We may feel alone in silence. But we can know that GOD IS THERE.
We may feel alone in life. We may wish we lived closer to our families; we may wish for people to share our lives with…but the silence may be the best thing for us. Because in the silence, we are forced to spend time with the Lord….and we are able to listen for His answers to our questions and prayers.

That is, of course, if we don’t fill it up with 1001 things to do. If we don’t turn on the music to drown out our thoughts like we often do while driving….

Because after I sat down last night in the silence and read and prayed, I was reminded that this verse is true no matter what circumstances I find myself in:

“Be at rest once more, O my soul, for the LORD has been good to you.” (Psalm 116:7)

He is GOOD!

If we take that word “rest” and cross-reference it, it will lead us to another beautiful verse:

“My soul finds rest in God alone; my salvation comes from Him.” (Psalms 62:1 – NIV)
In the King James version of that verse rest is translated as “waiteth”. The Hebrew word is: dumiyah, which is can be translated “stillness, silently, quiet trust”.

And I chuckle.

Because hasn’t God reminded me already this year about waiting? (see previous blog entry from…gasp…over 4 months ago). We are to be fragrance for Him in this world, and to smell strongly, incense needs to be crushed, it needs to sit & wait, and it needs to burn.

I think I need to work on the waiting aspect of life. And in order to do that well, I need to spend time with my Jesus – away from the common distractions of life. I need to carve out time to be still, and know that He is God. That’s my goal of 2012. That’s what needs to change in my life.

Being still and silent does allow us to reflect on how small and insignificant we are. We can feel that way in comparison to an almighty God or even a vast universe, as Dr. Ellie Arroway noted in Contact.

But we will never be able to truly feel rare and precious until we realize that we are loved by that Almighty God. We are not alone. And we celebrate every Christmas the birth of the Jesus Christ who came to make sure that our eternity can be spent in the presence of the One who knows us best and loves even so.

With hope like that…it’s no wonder that we can be still.

Sometimes…silence is good for the soul.