Finding Quiet Within and Speaking Out

It’s difficult for many of us to find inner quiet and calm. When we manage, however fleetingly, to be still, we find that clanging, chattering, and confusing noise clamors in our hearts and minds. Much of that noise echoes myriad distractions in the external world, the distractions of texts, memes, reels, posts, and hot takes—some of them silly, some outrageous, some cruel, some helpful, and all loud.

I also have inner noise which erupts like a volcano from dormant but molten memory. Yesterday morning, I woke up with a perfectly awful limerick I learned at recess in the third grade playing on repeat in my mind (I much prefer those mornings when I wake up with a hymn or of Leonard Cohen or even the theme from Sesame Street on my morning playlist). Not so long ago, when walking after a cancer treatment and now feeling particularly strong, I saw and heard a video-like recollection of a junior high football coach who, in front of the whole team,  latched-on to a roll of fat around my belly and screamed that I’d never be any good unless I learned to love football more than cookies. I have scores of accusing sound bites that intrude themselves into my awareness, and they share common themes. They slyly and snidely say, “you’re not enough” or “you’re too much.”.  

Then, there are alarming sounds of the present. Among them: thudding boots and intimidating shouts of masked para-military “law enforcement” on the streets of American cities; the weeping of parents who can’t buy food or afford healthcare for their children because short term political posturing means more to too many so-called ‘leaders” than does the common good; and groans of grief over once-healthy institutions broken by neglect or abuse or incompetence.

There’s a lot of noise within me. Noise shares a common root with nausea; noise can make us sick, blurring our vision, dulling our hearting, and draining our energy. It can suffocate our spirits and cut the nerve of our courage. When I’m filled with noise, I don’t trust that I can discern what to say, when, and how. For me, speaking out with clarity, compassion, and courage depends on “being still and knowing that God is God” (Psalm 46:10). I know that without inner quiet and peace, whatever I might say or do will merely add more decibels and divisions to the world around me.

I want to say less but have it mean more. I continue to learn that, being still until the inner noise subsides and I can hear the Voice of wisdom and love, is the way.