Silent Night

There’s a beauty found in silence, a peace that’s hard to find in this world unless we actively pursue and then immerse ourselves within it.

My husband has taken the boys Christmas shopping tonight, and at first, I had the holiday music blaring as I went about some tasks that needed doing. But then I thought about how much I enjoy peace and quiet, and I turned the music off.

It felt like my blood pressure fell ten points just those first few moments.

There’s an oddly rewarding satisfaction in hearing only the sound of your work. The light thud of boxes stacking, the crinkle of tissue paper folding, the gentle splash of tea pouring, and now, the light clip-clip of my fingers tapping the keyboard.

I think that too often, we lose that audible connection to our work, so overloaded are we with the background noise of kids, music, TV, chatter, appliances, vehicles zooming down the road outside our windows.

We’ve grown accustomed to working and living buried beneath a massive amount of audio and visual clutter.

And we wonder why we’ve lost our peace?

Even at night, around here, it can be noisy. Boys tossing and turning in their beds, the bed-springs creaking and little limbs thudding against the wall, the sound machine humming to buffer any noises that might wake the youngest, the dog snoring. Even at night, it is never as quiet as what I’m experiencing in this very moment.

I challenge you to try this: give yourself the gift of a quiet hour at least once between now and Christmas. I don’t know what that will look like in your house — it may be like mine, and only happen when you’re home alone.

But try to do it, whatever it takes. The peace, the sheer calmness you’ll feel is worth whatever it takes to make that special time for yourself.

And now, I’m going to go and enjoy whatever bits of silence that remain.

Silent night, holy night,

All is calm, all is bright…