My daughter's family all sleep with a white noise machine on full blast. They are drowning out the sounds of the creaking and popping, ice machine emptying, late night cat fights, traffic, in fact you really cannot hear anything but the machine and its static sound. I cannot sleep with the white noise machine. I am a very light sleeper, and that gives me a great sense of security. I will hear any noise out of the ordinary. I want to know if anyone makes the mistake of trying to break in my home, I will hear the noise. I sleep with the ordinary noises of the night and no white noise drowning them out.
We live in a world filled with white noise and we become so accustomed to it that we cease to hear it. While living in Fort Worth, I lived a block from the train track and two blocks from the hospital district. Even though I am a light sleeper, in time, I grew accustomed to the early morning trains-they began at 5:00 AM and the helicopters flying over delivering patients. Those sounds became part of my accustomed white noise. A part of the night time noises which my brain knew were to be expected.
I wonder if we become so dulled by the consistent white noises in our life that we become lulled into complacency. The television is roaring, Alexa keeps a constant stream of music, traffic rolls, sirens scream, and on and on. Why even in the quiet of our vehicles we hear the hum of the tires and cars whizzing by. No wonder we are dulled and unaware of all the interruptions of the quiet necessary for deep contemplation. How many of us dare to climb into our closet, purposefully find quiet and stillness to stop and think and perhaps pray. To listen for the emptiness of soundlessness which allows deep contemplation. How many of us dare to be
"Alone in the quiet of the hush of our own soul."
It is a learned practice as with any discipline. Start with a few short minutes and slowly add to your time. With the practice of quiet, what may we discover about ourselves and God?
"Before daybreak the next morning,
Jesus got up and
went out to an isolated place to pray."
Mark 1:35