The Sound of Silence

They say that silence is golden. My experience with silence is that it can be ire. When we went all night fishing on Mahan Creek, there were sounds of all kinds of night creatures. There were the crickets, katydids, the croaking of frogs, toads, the hooting of owls, and the rustling of branches.

There was the noise of boys laughing, the roaring of a fire, and the splashing of water where someone fell into the creek, the screaming of someone being chased or scared half to death. Then the yell an adult or leader heard more than anything else hollering to settle down, be quiet, who fell into the water?

If everyone and everything became quiet, it meant trouble and the silence of a storm was brewing nearby. It could mean that something unusual was lurking near. Silence in the woods at night is not normal.

The falling of a dead and rotten tree can break the silence. Before all the noise generated in the world today, we could hear strange sounds. We lived on a hill. The hollers around us echoed various sounds.

We could be in the backyard and hear a vehicle drive into the front yard. Daddy would say, “One of y’all go see who it is.”  Most of the time there was no vehicle or person. From the backyard we could hear people talking and music playing just as though the sound was in close proximity.

Momma told us stories of sounds that were scary. When mamma and her brother were small their mom, my grandmother, told them to get water from a spring in the holler. This was the late 1930’s and there were no pumps for running water to the house. Momma and my uncle Gerald where dipping water and the heard a loud noise that scared them.

Grandmoe, said that Uncle Gerald out run momma to the house. She said that momma’s hair was standing straight up, and she was white as a ghost. Grandmoe said Uncle Gerald was shaking like a leaf. They told grandmoe what they heard. Grandmoe said she had heard it before, and it sounded like an elephant falling down a tree. No one was able to find the source of the sound, and it continued for years.

When I was young my aunt Annie said the same thing. I never could understand the analogy of an elephant falling out of a tree. I aways wondered how an elephant climbed a tree. Aunt Anni’s house was on the opposite side of the holler from grandmoe. One day my cousins and I were playing in branch where momma and Uncle Gerald had dipped the water. Suddenly, a great sound scared us. All I can say is that it sounded like an elephant crashing through the trees.

It continued to reverberate gigantic and massive sound waves through the years. It was always loud and frightening. We heard the sound until aunt Annie and Uncle JP cleared the shrubs and trees behind their house to make a garden. We never heard the crashing elephant again.

When I pastored Friendship Baptist Church in Clanton, Alabama I tried an experiment one Sunday morning during worship. I told the congregation that people cannot remain silent very long. Folks enjoy noise. People in today’s culture listen to noise through ear pods, headsets, and ever so popular loud music flowing from audio power amplifiers. It has become prevalent that most town and cities have noise ordinances. Young people do not realize that they we deaf from all the loudness damaging their hearing. They may have a future where they cannot hear.

I challenged the congregation to be silent for one minute. It was amazing. In less than ten seconds people were squirming, fidgeting, looking at their watches (before I phones), staring at me. Again, we must have noise. For some people, the television, stereo, or other devices break the silence. I spend most days without playing noise. I love drive without the radio playing.

We listen when it is silent. I fear that folks do not like the silence because they do not want to listen to God. We pray in silence so we can communicate with God. Unfortunately, we do most of the talking as God listens. We need to spend our “quiet time” listening to Him.

As Director of Missions, I visited several churches where the men of the church gather for pray before worship. There were a few where all the men prayed at once. Very distracted I could not pray. I would stick my fingers in my ears and consecrate quoting Psalm 23.

 And when he had opened the seventh seal. There was silence in heaven for the space of half an hour, Revelation 8:1 KJV

After the tragic event of 911, I sat on the front porch of the pastorium of Gallion Baptist Church and the silence created was frightening. Could it be that when everything stopped on 911, God got the attention of the world. After a while we returned to noise.