From the Early September 2014 edition of The North Woods Call
One of the things I most enjoy about trips into the north woods are the various opportunities they offer for relative silence.
Not complete silence, of course. There are always renegade sounds wafting through the trees—birds singing, streams gurgling, leaves rustling, an occasional airplane passing overhead and other more menacing auditory distractions.
But any kind of silence is better than none at all.
Henry David Thoreau said that silence is “the universal refuge—the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts.”
“Nowadays, most men lead lives of noisy desperation,” added James Thurber in a take-off on one of Thoreau’s most famous quotes.
That’s for sure.
As we’ve mentioned on this page before, the world is becoming an increasingly noisy place. And not just due to the high decibel levels caused by machinery and stereophonic speakers. We’re suffering from a glut of high-tech communication gadgets and a general overload of information—both useful and useless—from a growing variety of sources.
I suppose we contribute our fair share to this overload with the news and editorials we publish in The North Woods Call. But that’s minor compared to the amount of tripe that spews from smart phones, social networking sites and the mouths of politicians.
A few years ago—before I shut myself in my home office and began writing this newspaper—I had real-world jobs where employee meetings were all too often ruled by individuals intent on sucking the air out of the room and dominating the conversation. Psychologists say that these extroverts have a need to talk. It energizes them and helps them process their thoughts.
The trouble is, they don’t seem to learn much of value when they’re talking all the time.
Most of my former colleagues would probably say that I don’t have that problem. In fact, they have sometimes complained that I don’t say enough. Kind of like “Silent” Calvin Coolidge, I suppose, without the bully pulpit.
I plead guilty as charged.
The truth is, I don’t really like to hear myself talk and my spirit gets weary if I have to listen to others drone on. Instead, I typically process my thoughts by silent contemplation—and energize myself by actually doing what needs to be done.
Silence is golden, they say, and I concur.
There are, of course, numerous benefits to being still. Among other things, it promotes inner peace, teaches us to listen, helps us communicate on a deeper level, encourages self-discovery, gives us rest, boosts creativity, enhances mental clarity and—most importantly—allows us to hear the voice of God.
“In the attitude of silence, the soul finds the path in a clearer light,” said Mahatma Ghandi, “and what is elusive and deceptive resolves itself into crystal clearness.”
“Nothing in creation is so like God as silence,” agreed Meister Eckhart.
I used to camp on occasion in the Sand Lakes Quiet Area near Traverse City and on North Manitou Island in Lake Michigan. At these and similar locations, I greatly appreciated the freedom from chance encounters with motorized vehicles.
Too much random racket supercharges my nerves, and leaves me drained and irritable.
Back in the 1990s, when I was attending the Colorado Outward Bound School near Leadville with a group of Kellogg National Fellows, the nighttime snoring ritual in the men’s bunkhouse sounded a bit like time trials at a local drag strip. It eventually drove me from the building, and forced me to move my bedroll outside and spread it out under the stars in a stand of tall pines.
I wasn’t being anti-social—just searching for quiet meditation and peaceful sleep.
One of the final exercises in the week-long Outward Bound experience involved several hours of solo time in a mountain forest. We were told to sit silently, observe nature and write letters to ourselves that would be opened a year after we returned home.
“Be still and know that I am God,” the holy scriptures say. That’s good advice, but tough to do in today’s world.
It has been said that the northern Arctic region expresses the sum of all wisdom—silence.
But I wonder about that, since modernity has invaded all areas.
A few years ago, when I visited the rural villages of Kotzebue and Noorvik in northwest Alaska—several hundred air miles from the urban center of Anchorage—my senses were assaulted by numerous all-terrain vehicles roaring through the streets and across the landscape.
It seems that wherever man goes, he carries the din of human activity with him.
“We need to find God,” Mother Teresa said, “and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature—trees, flowers, grass—grows in silence. See the stars, the moon and the sun—how they move in silence. We need silence to be able to touch souls.”
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