Posted tagged ‘silence’
May 30, 2025
“With the crowd dispersed, he climbed the mountain so he could be by himself and pray. He stayed there alone, late into the night.” (Matthew 14:23)
I sit in the same seat for the Sunday morning worship service. Call me a creature of habit or someone who is set (or sits) in his ways. It’s just what I do. A young military couple sits in front of me and a 95-year-old man sits at the other end of the pew. My wife sits beside me, and my youngest granddaughter chummy’s up on my other side. My seat is my place of reflection, peace, and comfort.
I also sit in the same seat at Starbucks, the last stool on the right facing out toward Pike’s Peak. It’s my blog writing spot (where I am currently sitting). You can tell when I’ve been teaching too much by the absence of blog posts for a while. I like this seat for the view and being able to “pull to the side.”
Jesus had a tendency to find a seat in the secluded, a spot where he was able to be alone and pray. Even on the night when he was facing his death, he went to the Garden of Gethsemane with some of his disciples. A lot of attention is given to their drowsiness, but before we get to that point in the story Jesus has said to them, “Stay here while I go over there and pray.” He drew aside to His spot. His “seat” was one of agony and conviction. He knew He was like a Death Row inmate in his final hours. The seat off to the side gave Him the time and space to come to grips with His purpose and destination.
Years ago I asked a man at the church I pastored why he sat in the same seat each week in worship? In my youthful brashness, I had assumed that he was an older man set in his ways and couldn’t see to do something different for a change. His answer made me feel like an insensitive jerk. The seat where he positioned himself was where he had sat with his son for his child’s growing up years…his son who was killed in Vietnam serving his country. When he sat in his seat, he felt close to his departed child.
Where we sit often has a backstory to it that needs to be told and honored. In our world that has minimal stability and consistency, we are hungry for places to sit, places to rest, and seats for contemplation. When we find that place, its sacredness becomes evident. We recognize it as being a gift. When others invade our space a sense of unrest settles upon us as the peace and quiet disappear.
Even this morning, as I was coming to the end of this blog, three young guys settled in around me and chatted loudly and long. In a way, I felt cheated that my seat had been invaded. They didn’t realize it. The world doesn’t realize it. In a way, it made me appreciate the hour of peace I had been gifted with before they came.
May each of us have some seating and sacred moments this day. Amen.
Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: Christianity, Faith, God, Jesus, Peace, sacred, seat, silence, solitude, travel
Comments: Be the first to comment
April 27, 2025
“The next day, the one after Preparation Day, the chief priests and the Pharisees went to Pilate. “Sir,” they said, “we remember that while he was still alive that deceiver said, ‘After three days I will rise again.’ So give the order for the tomb to be made secure until the third day. Otherwise, his disciples may come and steal the body and tell the people that he has been raised from the dead. This last deception will be worse than the first.” (Matthew 27:62-64)
Recently, I was joking with a friend who attends a mega-church. They were having two Saturday evening services and three services on Easter Sunday. I asked him if they changed the words to the Resurrection Sunday songs they sing for the Saturday services, like “He’s Almost Risen” and “He Lives…in a While.”
Actually, he and his wife are a part of a very good congregation that does a ton of service in the community. I’m just a stickler for tradition, like celebrating Jesus’ resurrection on the day of the week that the stone was rolled away and the tomb was empty.
Sorry to be such a “Debbie-downer”, but going deeper (or perhaps backing up), it seems that part of the death and resurrection of Jesus’ story, the part we tend to skate over, is the silence of Saturday after the agony of Friday. Holy Saturday was a day of waiting.
We don’t wait well. We don’t like silence. We don’t like uncertainty. Holy Saturday was a day of all three. It’s easy to skip ahead to the flowery, Easter-lily-ied, dress-up-in-our-Easter-suits-and-dresses day when the tomb was empty. Empty of the grief and full of expectation.
Saturday would make us think and consider the quiet of our room or, for the disciples, the quiet of the room they were locked inside of. Saturday is more about the misery and confusion of Job. It’s the day when we wrestle with the questions “Why?” and “What now?”
Holy Saturday, however, does not draw a crowd. Unlike the funeral of Pope Francis, people don’t flock to gatherings for contemplation and remembrance.
Pointing the finger back at myself, there have been a number of “Saturdays” in my life that I have tried to avoid. When a friend, ministry colleague, and mentor, Ben Dickerson, had a sudden heart attack and was on life support for several days, it was a “Saturday” journey. We prayed for his restoration. We wanted the tubes attached to his body to be gone and Ben to be back with us. We wanted to have a conversation with him and to have him share what God had been saying to him. The Saturday, however, stretched out into day after day of unfulfilled hope. When I spoke at his funeral, I had a difficult time keeping it together.
That loss is twenty years in the rearview mirror and I still remember it like it was yesterday. Yesterday, like a Saturday.
And yet, the Saturdays of our lives shape us and condition us for our Sundays. Loss is sometimes the prerequisite for gain. Holy silence precedes exultation and transformed lives.
oly SaturdayI’ll continue to razz my friend about the not-quite Easter Sunday services, but not too much. He knows I’m a Baptist. We have a history of making Mother’s Day the third holy holiday and singing eighty-nine verses of “Just As I Am,” after which we leave just as we have been.
Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: Bible, Easter, Faith, Holy Saturday, Jesus, Resurrection, silence
Comments: Be the first to comment
January 5, 2025
“Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowd. After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray. Later that night, he was there alone.” (Matthew 14:22-23)
I’m not a philosopher. I wouldn’t even be so bold as to label myself a theologian. When I was in seminary, I’d sometimes have to resort to reading the theology of Pannenberg or Moltmann audibly in order to not go off the side of the road in mid-paragraph. Simple minds struggle with page-long paragraphs. But I struggled through it.
Ask me a history question, and there’s a much better possibility that I know the answer, even the nitty-gritty details of the occurrence. How I grow spiritually happens more in the quiet moments of contemplation rather than grabbing a theological work of Hans Kung off my bookshelf. I do better at reading a chunk of scripture and letting it roll through my mind rather than trying to read through the Bible in a year. I get lost around the time I hit Lamentations, which accurately expresses my demeanor at that time as well.
I went to the local Christian bookstore to find a yearly devotional and was amazed at the wall of possibilities but lukewarm about the product. I settled on a Tim Keller devotional, The Songs of Jesus, a devotional that focuses on the Psalms. Short readings each day that help me ponder and consider. If I can mine the riches in the Psalms this year, I’ll be blessed in more than a hundred and fifty ways. (Keller’s book, The Prodigal God, is still one of my favorites.)
The seminary professor who had the greatest impact on my life in the three years I was a student at Northern Baptist Seminary was Dr. Tom Finger, a professor of theology, who had an incredible way of making me think through why I believed what I believed. Analogy-wise, he caused me not just to dig the hole but to consider why I dug the hole in the first place.
Deep thinking requires slowing the pace, putting my cell phone in another room, maybe shutting the door, and not hurrying God to give me a pearl of wisdom. I’d be more of a swine than a follower if I did that. Deep thinking considers the grace of God from different angles, moves it around like a Rubric’s Cube that never quite gets completed.
Deep thinking looks at forgiveness and ponders how we pretend its existence and hold back on its potential. Deep thinking unmasks the tint of self-centeredness it can include while identifying the depths it can go to. It feels the ache and rejoices in the softness of its calling.
Honestly, we reside in a culture that too often is focus-deficient and swayed by how the moment feels. Our view of intimacy with God is prone to being dependent on the smoke-and-glitter of the last praise song. That sounds cynical because it is. I just wonder (There I go again!) if the Almighty would sometimes like to speak to us in the deepness of silence.
Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: Bible, Christianity, contemplation, deep-thinking, Faith, God, Jesus, silence, tim-keller
Comments: Be the first to comment
December 22, 2019
WORDS FROM W.W. December 22, 2019
Life seems to be noisy these days. Two of my kids will be at the Lions-Broncos football game this afternoon. They’ll stand out because they’ll be cheering for the Lions. Seventy thousand noisy lunatics and they’ll be there.
Meanwhile, Carol and I will be experiencing a different kind of noise— the noise of our three month old grandson wondering where Mommy and Daddy are. Life seems to be diverse in its types of noisy cries and protests.
Sometimes life is so populated with noise that we can’t hear the silence. Sometimes in our rush to negotiate the situations of life we don’t recognize that there is a moment of holy quiet.
In the Bible there’s the story of Abraham being given the promise that he will have descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky. Abraham, however, got a bit impatient waiting for the fulfillment of God’s promise and rushed to solve the problem himself. The last verse of Genesis 16 identifies him as being 86 years old…and then there is a 13 year silence. Genesis 17:1 tells the reader that he is now 99.
13 years of silence from the heavens. It took that long for God to get Abraham’s attention.
Other than bleating sheep and angels praising God the story of Jesus’ coming is punctuated with times of silence.
A silent Zechariah. A silent confused Joseph. A silent but obedient Mary. Shepherds in terrified quiet during the visitation of the angel.
Silence has a way of focusing our attention on the next important word that is about to be spoken. Sometimes it’s a long silence, painful to sit through and confusing to our reasoning. Sometimes the silence is renewing.
And when the silence is from God it is either unnerving or, troubling as this sounds, unnoticed. Some of us wait with anxious anticipation for what God will say and do. Others are so consumed with the chatter of the world that they haven’t noticed the tightened lips of the Lord.
May today be a day of listening in spite of all the noise!
Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Christmas, Faith, Jesus, Pastor, Prayer, Story, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: Abraham, listening, listening to God, loudness, moments of silence, noise, peace and quiet, quiet time, silence, Silent night
Comments: Be the first to comment
October 13, 2018
WORDS FROM W.W. October 13, 2018
“My dear brothers and sisters, take note of this: Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry…” (James 1:19, NIV)
Yesterday I substitute taught for a 7th Grade Language Arts teacher. The lesson plan for each class consisted of taking attendance and then taking the class to the school library (now called the LMC, which stands for Learning Media Center). The school librarian would then tell the students about a few new books the LMC has and they would spend the rest of the class period silently reading.
Tough day! What did I do? Read some and did some rewriting on my book manuscript…plus, made sure the students were reading, not goofing around- a task that required considerable energy!
Libraries are not the same as they were…45 years ago. When I went to the Briggs Public Library in Ironton, Ohio you could hear a pin drop…and that pin better not drop again! It was quiet, studious, a fine place to locate one of the back wrenching volumes of the Encyclopedia Brittanica and do research on such interesting subjects as the Hoover Dam, mollusks, and the North Pole.
Libraries today are gathering places, social settings in the midst of books and magazines, and gaming rooms. A place in Colorado Springs where I do much of my book writing is called Library 21C. It’s a great place…as long as you have earbuds! A few weeks ago I was sitting in one of the seats at the long window counter on the lower level. A man three seats away was doing a job interview on his cell phone. Good Lord! The librarian at Briggs Public would have grabbed him by his ear lobe and marched him to the door.
Things are different! Silence is no longer golden! It’s been devalued!
One of the 7th Grade girls, who is energized by the social aspect of life, didn’t seem to be reading the book in front of her yesterday.
I’d scan the room and when my radar caught sight of her she would suddenly look down at her book. Thirty minutes into the class’s silent reading and she was on page 2. I walked over to her and said, “Hey! Let’s get busy!”
“What?”
I glanced at her book. “You’re on page 2!”
“No, page 3!”
“Okay! Page 3 and we’ve been here so long you should have read the book and written a book report on it already!”
Her eyes opened wide. “We have to do a book report!”
“No, no, no! I was exaggerating, but if you had really been reading you’d be further along than page 3.”
“I can’t think!”
“Why?”
“It’s too quiet in here!”
“What?”
“It’s too quiet! I can’t concentrate when it’s too quiet!”
“Are you serious?”
She nodded, and I realized that we were realizing- Okay, maybe I was realizing!- one of our generational differences. I read while I’m sitting in the swing on our back deck, or in my study, or at bedtime…all places where quiet and peace can follow me. This young lady operates in a world of chatter, instant communication that could better be named instant distraction, and noise.
Noise has replaced silence as the new golden. Silence is now an indication that something’s wrong. Silence also indicates that we’re listening, and in a noisy world we no longer listen very well.
And so what do I do in the midst of a culture that now values loudness and multiple mouths speaking at the same time? What do I do? I put my earbuds in and listen to the rhythmic noise of music to block out the noise of the other voices. I’ve resigned myself to the fact that it is my new silence.
Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Community, Freedom, Humor, Parenting, Pastor, Prayer, Story, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: Briggs Public Library, chatter, Encyclopedia Brittanica, language arts, library, middle school, middle school girls, middle schoolers, noise, quick to listen, quiet, quiet moments, quiet time, Seventh Grade, seventh grade boys, seventh graders, silence, silence is golden
Comments: Be the first to comment
August 30, 2017
WORDS FROM W.W. August 30, 2017
It has been a week of noise. There has been the noise of storms and floods, of roads crumbling and lives blasted. There has also been the usual political noise that seems to drown out the calm voice of reason. In my neighborhood, this morning was invaded by the noise of sirens, never a good sign in the forty-five minutes leading up to the beginning of a new school day. A noisy motorcycle sped by me this morning. Judging by the speed it was evidently on its way to a very important appointment.
In an hour I will be leading several classes of kindergarteners in physical education classes for the day. What do you think the noise level will be in those educational opportunities?
It’s ironic that we get frustrated with noise and yet many of us are uncomfortable without it. As I sit at Starbucks right now sipping my Pike Place brew while writing this I have my earbuds in listening to my song playlist from Spotify. I use noise to drown out noise! I desire quiet, but I’m not sure I’m ready for it!
My thoughts on a quiet place may have pushed their way to the front of my mind due to the fact that Carol and I hosted the three “energetic and talkative” grandkids this past weekend.
9, 6, and 2
And always needing something to do!
Noise is the subtle voice of a contemporary evil. In Mark 1:25 Jesus tells the demon that is speaking to be quiet and come out of the man he is residing in. A little while later he tells nature itself to be quiet.
Perhaps Jesus needs to speak to the noise in our lives that shouts over top of the calmness! I look at my day and I realize that quiet moments may only come in bathroom breaks, and I’m pretty sure that’s not a good thing!
Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Community, Freedom, Grandchildren, Jesus, Parenting, Pastor, Prayer, Story, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: "Be quiet! Come out of him!", Be quiet, calmness, Kindergarten, Mark 1:25, noise, noisy people, noisy situations, quiet, quiet moments, quietness, silence
Comments: Be the first to comment
August 7, 2016
WORDS FROM W.W. August 7, 2016
When I was pastoring one of the favorite times of the week would come on Sunday morning for about an hour and a half before anyone else arrived at church. I’d be the only one in the building and the quiet of those moments would prepare me for the next few hours of preaching, teaching, and pastoring.
The quiet was nourishment for my soul.
The phrase in Psalm 23 that always seems to speak to me greatly is where the Psalmist says “He leads me beside quiet waters; he restores my soul.” Quiet waters…soothing rain…peaceful thunder storms…silent snow. For me it seems that I associate many of life’s most peaceful moments in the “quiet waters” of life.
This morning my physical body is still “feeling the noise” of spending yesterday with our three grandkids. Quiet moments kept their distance from us. Our grandkids seem to feel comfortable enough with us to use their loud voices…all the time! The two older grandkids frolicked in the turbulent waters of our hot tub. The youngest granddaughter, who is sixteen months old, delighted me with her actions and words, and yet her endless energy left me exhausted. This morning quiet waters sound very appealing. Therapeutic waters for an aching lower back sound pretty good, also!
It seems that we live in a world that doesn’t appreciate silence, a culture that doesn’t see value in quiet. We’re addicted to noise. We’ve fallen to the deception that noise means life. Sometimes noise is used to block out noise. I’m writing this while sitting in Starbucks with ear buds firmly inserted listening to music, in order to block out the noise of Starbucks. Weird, huh?
Quiet is disturbing to many of us. Strange that “disturbing the peace” usually is the result of excessive noise. The silence of a moment is the probe into my soul.
If you look in scripture you’ll find that silence is usually a part of someone’s encounter with the holiness of God, or the judgment of God. It’s like the boot camp buck private standing before the drill sergeant. No words are needed; in fact, no words better even be said! It is the realization for the private of who he is.
The silent moments of scripture are deafening experiences.
Quiet waters and deafening silence.
“Lord, lead me today beside quiet waters. When my life is speaking too much and listening too little, silence my spirit to get my attention back on what you are saying! Amen.”
Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Community, Jesus, Pastor, Prayer, Story, The Church, Uncategorized
Tags: a quiet place, being silent, Leads me beside quiet waters, Psalm 23, quiet, quiet waters, silence, silent, silent moments, soothing rain
Comments: Be the first to comment
March 12, 2015
WORDS FROM W.W. March 12, 2015
A number of years ago Becky Pippert, author of the book Out of the Salt Shaker, spoke at a youth convention in Michigan. About seven hundred high school students were gathered in an auditorium to hear her messages during the two and a half days. As Pippert got to the weekend, however, she developed a solid case of laryngitis. She spoke in a voice softer than Marlon Brando’s in The Godfather. A strange thing happened! Seven hundred teenagers became quiet, straining to hear every word that Pippert spoke. Someone with a loud voice would not have gotten the crowd’s attention like she did. The challenges of her affliction caused her audience to listen.
It is an understatement to say that our world is noisy. It is so noisy that people have developed the habit of not being able to listen. Multi-tasking is a nice term we use to excuse the practice of granting someone half of our attention.
But silence can be a bonding instrument. Sometimes the silence of God can bring people together. 1 Kings 19 has the story of the prophet Elijah hiding in a cave. The story is interesting as it described a great and powerful wind tearing the mountain apart, and then an earthquake shaking the land, and then a fire happening. After each of these dramatic…dare I say loud and attention-seeking events…the scripture says that the Lord was not in any of those events, but then came a gentle whisper, and when Elijah heard it and pulled his cloak over his face and stood at the entrance of the cave.
In quiet moments he heard!
I tend more and more to believe that the church makes a lot of noise, but is hearing impaired. Silence disturbs us…invades our comfort zones…seeps into our troubled souls. It is silence, however, that draws the people of God together to listen.
In the viewing room of the deceased as family and friends gather to remember.
In the midst of holding a piece of bread and a small cup of communion wine.
In the holding of a newborn.
In the soft prayer of a child.
In the holding of hands of the gathered saints.
In the silence that follows the sharing of tragic news.
We use the phrase “silence is golden!” Silence is also revealing! Like a voice-impaired youth convention speaker, the lack of a fluent tongue often amplifies the words of the Spirit.
Categories: Bible, Christianity, Community, Death, Faith, Holy Spirit, Jesus, Pastor, Prayer, Story, The Church, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: a gentle whisper, Becky Pippert, Elijah, laryngitis, listen, listening, multi-tasking, Out of the Salt Shaker, quiet, silence, silent
Comments: Be the first to comment
July 7, 2014
WORDS FROM W.W. July 7, 2014
Recently released findings from a University of Virginia psychologist indicates that most people are extremely uncomfortable being alone with their thoughts. Tim Wilson recruited volunteers for the research- mostly college students- from a church and a farmer’s market. Each person was placed in an undecorated room and asked to be alone with their thoughts for fifteen minutes. Many of the participants admitted afterwards that they had cheated during the time frame and checked their cell phones or listened to music.
After an initial fifteen minute period participants were asked to do another fifteen minutes, but this time they were given an out. They were hooked up to an electric shock. If at sometime during the fifteen minutes they wanted to be done with being alone with their thoughts they could self-administer the electric shock to themselves and they would be done. Of the participants “67%” of the men went for the electric shock rather than be alone with their thoughts. of the women 25% administered the shock.
Amazing, that so many would choose the pain of an electric shock over the uncomfortableness of being alone with their thoughts.
It also may say something about our reluctance to seek quiet. Quiet threatens, so we “self-medicate” ourselves with music, social connectedness, and cell phones. Think about it! A traumatic experience for many people is having their cell phone broken and having to go through a full day without it. As I’m writing this I’m listening to music on Pandora to help me focus.
How did our grandparents ever make it? They must have had to hum a lot!
For me as a Christ-follower there are other implications. How will I hear the whisper of the holy if it chooses to not come through my headphones? How will I see the burning bush if it doesn’t come through a lap top screen?
This is a quandry, a challenge, and an opportunity for me. I’m at the beginning of a month-long study leave. To call it quiet time would be too threatening, and, to be honest, not as productive-sounding. Not many people see a month of quiet reflection as being valuable.
Listen! I’m not necessarily comfortable with it either. If the button for the electric shock we close at hand I would might it numerous times.
I’ve come to believe, however, that I serve a God of quiet moments in a world of noise. It is often in the silence that he entertains and tames my thoughts, and reigns in my tendency to race forward like a wild pony.
Categories: Bible, Christianity, Jesus, Prayer, Story, Uncategorized, Youth
Tags: alone with our thoughts, being alone, meditating, quiet, quiet time, silence, thinking, thoughts, Tim Wilson, University of Virginia research
Comments: Be the first to comment
March 7, 2014
WORDS FROM W.W. March 7, 2014
Silence is golden…and increasingly uncomfortable, it seems! People are putting down $300 for headphones that will allow them to keep the noise in…their “noise preference”, that is!
There’s a reason why we wish for “peace and quiet.” The two are often linked together.
And yet, we live in a noisy world that elevates sounds and echoes and voices…and has a hard time knowing how to handle silence.
Millions watch “The Voice” each week. Nascar has a following of even more than that, as people flock to the raceways to cheer at the sounds of the engines revving.
Last Sunday I did a children’s story before the congregation received communion. I talked about the meaning of the elements…the bread and the cup…and asked the children to be extra quiet and still as we took communion that morning. We didn’t filter the silence with music…we just kept quiet. I’ve never had a communion experience quite like that! There was complete silence as we gathered together around the Lord’s table. it was…good!
A friend of mine recently made the comment that the silence of God sometimes brings people together.
We wait for a word, a leading, a whisper.
The noise has a way of drowning out lips that are sealed. We believe that God is ever-moving, and, as a result of that, we erroneously think that there must be constant chatter and loud praise.
A scripture that always has intrigued me comes at the end of Genesis 16 and the first verse of Genesis 17. I won’t quote it here, but simply say that it indicates a gap of thirteen years in Abram’s life. God had promised Abram that he was going to father a great nation, but things weren’t happening quick enough. Sarai wasn’t getting pregnant and neither of them was getting any younger, so they took things into their own hands and brought in Hagar to be a substitute wife. They could only trust God so long with what was going on. The emptyness of Sarai’s womb was too much silence for them to handle.
And so God was “silent” for thirteen years to further help them to realize that HE was going to bring a son into the lives of Abram and Sarai. Abram means “exalted father.” Abraham means “father of many.” Thirteen years of silence can bring us to a more attentive place, and God strengthened that listening by changing a name.
Sometimes God seems to be silent in our churches and in our lives, and we panic and begun to orchestrate holy moments. And yet, it is in the silence that we can quite often go to a deeper search…a testing of our faith…a point of confession and repentance. It’s a pathway through the wilderness, and yet we are hesitant to proceed.
Quite often I ask a question of a men’s group that I lead. The flow of conversation about pro football, hunting, new car models, and building projects has been going non-stop…and then the pastor interrupts the warmness, the male bonding, by asking the question “So what has God been doing in your life?” Or “What’s God been saying to you ?”
Silence invades the conversation. I realize that it is easier, and not as threatening, to talk about Cabela’s and outdoor grills than holy conversations, but the quiet that follows the question is deafening.
Some of our most meaningful times together have then flowed out of that question that is allowed to simmer for a bit.
Silence does end up leading us to the gold.
Categories: Bible, children, Christianity, Community, Death, Faith, Jesus, Pastor, Prayer, Story, The Church, Uncategorized
Tags: Abraham, Abram, chatter, headphones, noise, peace and quiet, quiet, Sarah, Sarai, silence, solitude, The Voice
Comments: Be the first to comment
Words from WW Blog 