As we enter the second round of the donkey and elephant shows, and the news, blogs, and conversations fill with who said what, who found out what about whom, and all the other juicy bits of gossip and grist of the political season, I want to take a moment to offers words about cultivating silence.
I think cultivation is the right word. It speaks of gardening, the long and laborious process of making the ground right in preparation for what it is you wish to grow, and then the pruning of what you don't want to grow.
Silence doesn't just happen.
Noise happens. Cars drive by, the cats whine for inexplicable reasons, the phone rings, family and friends and salespeople stop by, not to mention the background noise around us that we don't notice until a power outage and the deafening quiet that follows.
Downtime is no guarantee of silence. I turn on the TV, the computer, the radio. Or I busy myself with something.
Cultivating silence takes work.
And even in the silence, there is this little voice, part John Calvin, part Ethridge Knight, saying, "Man, why aren't you doing something?!"
No comments:
Post a Comment