White Noise
At home, I have a machine in my bedroom that produces white noise. (White noise is many different frequencies of sound played at once, just as white light is made up of many different colors).
When I first turn the machine on, it sounds very loud. In no time, though, I literally don’t hear the sound unless something reminds me of it.
White noise keeps me from hearing other sounds. It fills my ears so that other sounds don’t startle me or interrupt my sleep.
Now that I have used the white noise machine a while, as soon as I turn it on, my body relaxes. Evidently, my body has come to associate the sound of white noise with rest and sleep. (Even my dog quiets down when the white noise begins.)
At bedtime, it’s a good thing to have my awareness dulled by white noise. But at other times, it’s not necessarily a good thing!
This Lent our theme is Listen: Hearing that Still Small Voice and Finding Your Own. We focus on this theme in worship and also on Monday nights through a DVD series on how to listen to and for God.
Many of you may say, “Why do I need to spend the 40 days of Lent learning to listen? Pastor, I listen every day. I listen constantly.”
That may be true for some but for most of us what we do is hear. We hear the voices of our family. We hear the news and TV. We hear anger and division in our political discourse. We hear hymns and songs of love and hope. We hear white noise, a cacophony of sound. But do we listen? What is the difference?
Hearing is a passive activity. Sound waves stimulate your ears and are carried to your brain for interpretation.
Listening is an active, physical and spiritual activity. It requires ears, brain, eyes, heart and spirit. Listening brings knowledge and understanding.
This Lent we are learning practices of listening for and to God’s whispering— and for our own voice from within our hearts. We call it “practice” because it is something that we do over and over until it is second nature to us.