Silence

Silence

            Even though I’m not Catholic, I have been practicing Lent about five years or so. It always takes me time to figure out what to give up for this Pre-Easter fast. Originally, you fast from food, especially meat except for fish on Wednesdays and Friday, if you follow the Catholic church's Lent. However, people have started to give up things like electronics, drinks, certain activities, etc. in more recent years. I have been following things trend myself and decided to give up podcasts for Lent. I listen to podcasts A LOT since last year. I mostly listen to them at work, but sometimes I would listen to them on the way to and from work. They were slowing taking over my life, so it seemed like a good thing to let go of for a while. I did make an exception for the podcasts that were church sermon or Christian discussion because that seemed like a good thing to keep. It honestly has been kind of hard not to have something to listen to after I was done with the sermons. I started adding worship music to my rotation as well and some Christian rap so I wouldn’t fall asleep from the hymns. I think after a while I really needed to stop and think why I was so desperate to fill the time with something; to fill the silence with something even if the something wasn’t necessarily bad. Then I realized that this wasn’t a new issue for me.

            Throughout my late teens and twenties, I have learned just how uncomfortable with being in silence or being alone/ alone with my thoughts. I ‘ve mentioned it before in other posts, but when I get in these situations I always try to find a way to fill silence or find somebody to hang out with. I don’t think it’s wrong to want to spend time with others, but it was an automatic reflex for me. During this season of Lent, I had to really stop myself from just throwing on some Hillsong Young & Free and say it was for the purpose of worship. I made myself sit at my desk without anything playing. I drove with the radio on but pretty low. I let the silence be a part of my day. At first, it was kind of hard and my brain would try to make up for it by thinking of as many things as it could and as quickly as it could. That was noisier than just listening to music. I also really realized I overthink a lot, but I’ll worry about that later. Eventually, I got all the thoughts to settle down and the silence seemed a lot less pressing. In fact, more recently I haven’t even noticed when my sermons or worship CD ends. There are still some days where I’ll keep adding to my queue out of habit, but I’m working on embracing the quiet parts of my day.

            I think the goal of Lent is to give up something to draw closer to God. To empty something out to let Him fill in that space. I think giving myself some quiet time will help me draw closer to God. Maybe after those sermons, I listen to I can sit and think on the message instead of going to the next podcast on my list. Maybe on my drives to and from work, I can pray (with my eyes open of course). The quiet time and silence moments can be filled with God moments. It’s an opportunity to be with the Lord and I can always make more time for that. I will still listen to podcasts (and honestly looking forward to catching up on some, I sorry Jesus), but I’ll think twice about why I need to add another show to binge instead of sitting in the silence. I’m learning that silence can be an opportunity.