May 3 2021 Day 83 1 Kings 17:1–19:21

..the Lord was not in the wind. . . the Lord was not in the earthquake . . . the Lord was not in the fire . . .



Elijah was sent by the Lord to stand on the mountain as the Lord passed by. All of these tremendous and frightful things happened as Elijah stood there – wind so strong it was splitting the mountains, an earthquake and fire. And Elijah stood there, but he did not find the Lord in those things.

After the fire was a ‘sound of sheer silence’. I’ve heard that sound and it is startling. I believe the last time was when we had a horrific ice storm and lost power for almost a week. The house was so still and silent. Of course there was no music or movie sounds. But there was also an audible absence of the buzz of electricity. There’s a room at a lab in Minneapolis, an aneochic chamber that is the quietest place on the planet. Apparently, it’s actually difficult for people to stay in it for too long. There’s no echo, no reverberation of normal sounds. Because you can’t hear the echo of your voice, or clapping or any other noises, it’s disorienting and can case claustrophobia and anxiety. One person described it as if he were locked in a coffin, even though it’s a large room, with plenty of air.

I mention this because the sound of sheer silence is perhaps as frightening as the sound of fire or wind. It’s startling, and generally denotes that something’s not right. There’s also a phenomenon where animals are silent immediately before earthquakes – frogs, crickets, dogs, all stop their normal noise.

Having said all of that, it’s in that silence or at least as close as we can get, that I can best hear God. I can certainly sense God’s presence in loud places – in joyful worship, the din at a homeless meal, the chaos of my house. But actually hearing God, for me, requires more silence. And I must admit, silence is not something I generally seek out. Quite the contrary. I fill silence with music, books on tape, humming. I probably wouldn’t last five minutes in the world’s quietest room.

I have some upcoming unexpected free time. I aim to build in more silence into that time, silence to hear God’s voice. Silence to let my central nervous system quiet down (not that it’s out of whack, but we all could use a quieted nervous system I bet). Silence to rest.

This morning, I’m thinking about ways to find sheer silence in my world, and to hold its borders, before other sounds creep in. Maybe it’s as simple as putting on my noise-cancelling headphones, with nothing playing. Hmm. That’s a thought.