Silence isn’t just golden — it’s heavenly.

Published Oct 22, 2009

From Newsweek magazine issue dated Nov 2, 2009

It’s not hard to imagine hell as a place that is very, very noisy. In The Screwtape Letters, C. S. Lewis’s Devil detests music and silence. Hell, he crowed, was filled with furious noise: “the audible expression of all that is exultant, ruthless and virile…We will make the whole universe a noise…We have already made great strides in this direction as regards the Earth. The melodies and silences of Heaven will be shouted down in the end.”

In the Middle Ages, Christian scholars believed that Satan did not want human beings to be alone with God, or with each other, fully alert and listening. This is why British author Sara Maitland believes the mobile phone is a “major breakthrough for the powers of hell.” Maitland is more conscious of noise than most—she spent more than a decade pursuing silence like a hunter its prey. She writes in A Book of Silence, just published in the U.S., how she traveled to the desert, the hills, and the remote Scottish Highlands because she wanted to discover what silence truly was, and immerse herself in it. “I am convinced that as a whole society we are losing something precious in our increasingly silence-avoiding culture,” she writes, “and that somehow, whatever this silence might be, it needs holding, nourishing and unpacking.”

After spending 40 days in an isolated house on a windy moor, Maitland found silence did several things: her physical sensations were heightened (she was overwhelmed by the deliciousness of porridge, heard different notes in the wind, was more sensitive to temperature, and emotional); she became what she calls “disinhibited” (a Jungian notion that once alone, you are free to do what you want—picking your nose while eating, stripping your clothes off, abandoning grooming, washing once a week); she heard voices (a young girl, then a male choir singing in Latin, which she thinks may have been the wind); experienced great happiness; felt connected with the cosmos; was exhilarated by the risk and peril in what she was doing; and discovered a fierce joy, or bliss.

It is a strikingly refreshing book to read, in the midst of the clamor and din, ever-mounting distraction, yelling TV pundits, solipsistic tweet-ing, and flash-card sentiment of our Internet age. It made me realize what a profound longing many of us have for silence, how hard it is to find, and how easily we forget how much we need it. Most snatch it in small grabs—hot baths, long runs, lap swimming, bike rides. Maitland rails against the idea of silence as void, absence, and lack—something that we must rush to fill—insisting it is positive and nurturing, and something more profound that must be actively sought. (When silence is imposed, of course, it is something entirely different.)

What’s interesting about silence is not just the extremism, often merging on madness, of those who can claim to have lived silently: the Arctic explorer, the deep-sea diver, the sailor, the hermit, the ascetic, the nun. What is also important is what the rest of us can wring from the more mundane moments of stillness. We can’t all skip around nude through the Scottish bracken, or inhabit caves in Tibetan mountains, but we can experience silence in ways so potent they become addictive: the magical quiet of swimming under the sea; the uninterrupted hours after midnight; the sweet intimacy between a mother and her baby, being nursed in the wee hours; the breathless stillness after excellent sex; the hush of awe while gazing at a proud, ancient mountain, a huge rock glowing red in the desert, or someone soaring down a 20-foot wave. Even if it is not pure silence, it can be enough. We may not all have visions of a spinning, shining, silent God as Maitland does, but, as our thoughts are stripped back and stilled, we might sense the mystery of something greater than ourselves.

We often talk about distraction, and the banality of a culture that seems to smother deep thought or time-sucking contemplation—we tweet sneezes, we blink and record it for our friends, we sprint to be the first to speak. The anonymity of the Internet has been replaced by hyper-identity; the idea of shutting up and staring at a rock, piles of sand, or blinking stars for hours, if not weeks, seems profoundly countercultural.

I know, it sounds like the lament of the Luddite. But if generations of mystics and seekers have insisted that there’s something that connects silence with the sublime, you have to wonder what we are distracting ourselves from—and who we could be if, every now and then, we paused.

http://www.newsweek.com/id/219010

As e-mail is becoming more and more a part of our daily lives, some of us are learning — to our misfortune — an essential fact about how this technology works. We’re learning that e-mails are irrevocable. Once you hit the “Send” button, you can’t take them back. E-mails are forever.

Such is a lesson learned by one Michael Brown, who for a time headed the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). In their book, Send: The Personal Guide to E-Mail for Office and Home, David Shipley and Will Schwalbe share several e-mails Brown wrote during the worst days of the Hurricane Katrina disaster:

FROM: Michael Brown
TO: FEMA Staff
August 29, 2005
Are you proud of me? Can I quit now? Can I go home?

FROM: Michael Brown
TO: FEMA Staff
August 29, 2005
If you’ll look at my lovely FEMA attire you’ll really vomit. I am a fashion god.

FROM: Michael Brown
TO: FEMA Staff
August 29, 2005
I’m not answering that question, but do have a question. Do you know anyone who dog-sits?

When the American public had an opportunity to read these random thoughts of the man who was supposed to be masterminding the recovery from one of the worst hurricanes in our history — to fully grasp the sheer banality and triviality of them — it was not long before President Bush had to show “Brownie” the door.

Just remember: Hitting that “Send” key is irrevocable.

— Based on examples cited by David Shipley and Will Schwalbe, Send: The Personal Guide to E-Mail for Office and Home (Knopf, 2007), 3-4.

School suspends cub scout for camping utensil
A 6-year-old Delaware Cub Scout was suspended for carrying a camping utensil to school. First-grader Zachary Christie says he had planned to use the multi-tool—incorporating a knife, a spoon, and a fork—to eat his lunch. But under his school’s zero-tolerance policy, Christie was suspended and faced 45 days in a local reform school. “I think the rules are what is wrong,” said Christie, who was reinstated after a public outcry. “Not me.”

Sex offender arrested for attending church
A convicted sex offender from North Carolina has been arrested for attending church, because the church has a day-care center. State law bans sex offenders from coming within 300 feet of any child-care facility, but James Nichols, 31, says he was “floored” when police arrested him after he attended the church service. “Why am I being treated this way after trying to better myself?” asked Nichols.

What would you do if you were the Principal or the Pastor?

I read this in a weekly magazine I get entitled, “The Week.”

The numbers are startling. Some 2.3 million Americans are in prison, while another 5.1 million are on probation or parole. Altogether, the 7.4 million people in the criminal-justice system outnumber the individual populations of 38 states.  Prior to the 1970s, the U.S. incarceration rate was similar to that of other nations. But the U.S. inmate population has nearly tripled in the past quarter-century, making the U.S. incarceration rate the highest in the world—almost five times the world average, surpassing even China and Russia. With only 5 percent of the world’s population, the U.S. has 25 percent of the world’s prisoners in its jails.

Do we have the most morally, socially sick people living in the USA?  More importantly, where is the church in transforming the towns, cities, and urban areas where Jesus calls us to be “Salt and Light?”

What if every church adopted an Ex-Con or two or three and helped them know God’s plan of redemption and personal/social change?  Maybe the recidivism rate would radically drop.  But would our “neighbors” living around the church protest – “Not in my backyard” mentality?

In Bill Gates’ new book Business @ The Speed of Thought, he lays out 11 rules that students do not learn in high school or college, but should. He argues that our feel-good, politically correct teachings have created a generation of kids with no concept of reality who are set up for failure in the real world.

RULE 1 – Life is not fair; get used to it.

RULE 2 – The world won’t care about your self-esteem. The world will expect you to accomplish something BEFORE you feel good about yourself.

RULE 3 – You will NOT make 40 thousand dollars a year right out of high school. You won’t be a vice-president with a car phone, until you earn both a high school and college degree.

RULE 4 – If you think your teacher is tough, wait till you get a boss. He doesn’t have tenure.

RULE 5- Flipping burgers is not beneath your dignity. Your grandparents had a different word for burger flipping, they called it opportunity.

RULE 6 – If you mess up, it’s not your parents’ fault, so don’t whine about your mistakes, learn from them.

RULE 7 – Before you were born, your parents weren’t as boring as they are now. They got that way from paying your bills; cleaning your clothes and listening to you talk about how cool you are. So before you save the rain forest from the parasites of your parents’ generation, try “delousing” the clothes in your own room.

RULE 8 – Your school may have done away with winners and losers, but life has not. In some schools they have abolished failing grades; they will let you try as many times as you want to get the right answer. This doesn’t bear the slightest resemblance to ANYTHING in real life.

RULE 9 – Life is not divided into semesters. You don’t get summers off and very few employers are interested in helping you find yourself. Do that on your own time.

RULE 10 – Television is NOT real life. In real life people actually have to leave the coffee shop to go to their jobs.

RULE 11 – Be nice to nerds. Chances are you’ll end up working for one.

We are so much a culture addicted to entertainment.  Growing up I had to entertain myself with my imagination.  I read books, pretended I was Tarzan or Roy Rogers with neighborhood kids.  We invented games with pea shooters and BB guns and cards.  When family came around we put on skits.  I learned to play piano and guitar.  I sidewalk surfed with Jan and Dean.  I told jokes and made up wild stories.  Let me entertain you.

So when three celebs died recently – Ed McMahon, Farrah, and Michael Jackson, I was bored with all the “News Specials.”  I never bought her posters or watched the Angels and my sons loved to do Michael’s Moon Dance.  I think I bought the Jackson Five’s first album.  But it never went far after that. I stopped after “ABC.”

Of the the three that passed I was most struck by Ed McMahon.  I watched Johnny Carson religiously.  Ed was the best “second fiddle” a celebrity could ever want.  Thank God for second fiddles – the hardest act to play well. Plus, Ed made it into the eighth decade of life.  “Hi -Yo!”

The saddest of the three is Michael Jackson – a boy who never grew up.  He was entertaining in his music videos.  But his real life was a man in search of a childhood he never had.  I bet he will replace Elvis for shrinesmanship.  Is that a word?  Well, it should be because Americans have plenty of shrines for music, sports, and all things entertaining.  Same old substitutes for God…

Is there anything of which one can say,
“Look! This is something new”?
It was here already, long ago;
it was here before our time.

¹¹ There is no remembrance of men of old,
and even those who are yet to come
will not be remembered
by those who follow. Ecclesiastes 1:10-11

On Memorial Day 2009, Raibin Osman, a 20-year-old man from Aloha, Ore., called 911 with an unusual complaint: a box of orange juice had been omitted from his younger brother’s order at a McDonald’s drive-thru.

Upset that the teller declined to rectify the alleged mistake, Osman called the cops to complain, adding that a McDonald’s employee had mocked his brother’s accent.

According to a county sheriff, Osman was charged with improper use of 911 after he failed to listen to deputies explain that the emergency number was reserved for emergencies. He spent a night in jail and was released the following day.

Proverbs 29:9
If a wise man goes to court with a fool, the fool rages and scoffs, and there is no peace.

1.2 million Lives saved by President George W. Bush’s President’s Emergency Plan for aids Relief (PEPFAR).

$2,450 Amount it cost to avert each death.

(Source: Annals of Internal Medicine)

11% Americans who think President Obama is a Muslim.

19% Evangelical Protestants who think this.

38% Evangelical Protestants who think Obama is a Christian. In October 2008, 45% thought so.

(Source: Pew Research Center)

53% Executive pastors who expect their church’s income to increase in 2009.

22% Executive pastors who expect their church’s income to decrease.

(Source: Leadership Network)

Last night I watched Jay Leno’s last Tonight Show.  I started watching the tonight show while my mother ironed the underwear and wash cloths.  Remember that?  Johnny Carson was king of the Late Nite.  Now Jay bids farewell for Conan to take over.

I went to Jay Leno’s show in Burbank three times.  It was a very cool experience.  I love L.A. You see Jay started on the Tonight Show when I started at Zion Church.  I thought I would retire before he quit.  Jay, the stand up comedian, will continue on and on.  I look forward to his early variety show this fall.

His humor is clean and a way to laugh at life.  God bless him with many more years of jokes.

Proverbs 15:13
“A happy heart makes the face cheerful, but heartache crushes the spirit.”

“For three thousand years, Jerusalem has been the center of Jewish hope and longing. No other city has played such a dominant role in the history, culture, religion and consciousness of a people as has Jerusalem in the life of Jewry and Judaism. Throughout centuries of exile, Jerusalem remained alive in the hearts of Jews everywhere as the focal point of Jewish history, the symbol of ancient glory, spiritual fulfillment and modern renewal. This heart and soul of the Jewish people engenders the thought that if you want one simple word to symbolize all of Jewish history,that word would be ‘Jerusalem.’”  — Teddy Kollek