noise.

I play music on my car stereo while I'm driving. I play music on my laptop when I'm at home. I play music on my ipod while I'm working out. When none of these things are available, I'm usually singing (whether out loud or not depends on the company). It seems I always have a song playing in my head.

Music is wonderful, there's no question about that. But between the music that is my continual background noise, the movies I watch from time to time, the books I read, the sermons I listen to, even the people I talk to...a few days ago it felt like it all kind of crescendoed (pun-y...ha).

I felt like there was so much noise in my head that I couldn't hear myself. It was like I didn't know which thoughts were mine--and along with that what God was speaking to me--and which ones I had just picked up along the way. I got this picture in my head of my long-haired cat when he comes into the house after being outside: his belly fur pretty much touches the ground, so it's always collecting leaves and such. He doesn't notice.

So I cut it all out. Silenced it all. Pulled the leaves out of my belly fur (ok, not quite...ha). But I'm taking some "quiet time". A few days, a week...however long it takes to curb my compulsion to fill every moment of silence with some type of noise, to usher in peace and quiet and the ability to be still and listen.

I feel like the root issue with all this is that of being honest about who I am. The continual flowing in of external thoughts and opinions and noise drowns my true self. It seems these things are usually brought to my attention because of a circumstantial shift. I think when you are drawn into and challenged to fill a new role, be it communally or academically or familially or whatever really, it requires a bit of inner wrestling. Wrestling through how you fit into that new role is also a question of how that role fits into who you are.

Wellll don't really know how I ended up there. Music...cat...wrestling...what?
But I have to say, I have had a delightfully silent afternoon :)