The Sound of Silence

What is the sound of silence?  Is it the absence of sound or a moment where time stands still?  Do you hear silence?  Sometimes silence is deafening.  When you are all alone and there is nothing by God, the silence is pierced with a sword the moment the Lord brings you a revelation.  We need silence at times.  

I remember when I craved an ounce of silence when there was no silence.  The sounds of babies crying and little ones needing something in the background.  It was a constant sound.  You often learn to tune some of these things out since these noises are continual for a young mother. As my children need me less and are off doing something elsewhere, that silence is too quiet.  I miss the constant pitter patter and giggles or cries of them needing me each moment.  That is my new silence 

When you are angry, you can use the silence as a weapon.  You can give someone the “silent treatment”.  The lack of words is more full because that silence keeps you wondering and searching.  It is like a prison when you wall in with silence.  

The silence of the grave is a very final and it is a loud silence that draws a person into a sad song of grieving.  When the face ceases to move, the eyes forever shut, and the hands cold, it is a time of silent crying and longing to see this person move again.  A silence of this sort is only broken by the trumpets of angels calling the soul to their eternal home.  With every thud of dirt that hits the coffin we hear the silence of tears falling.

There was once written a song in the 1960s which was a sort of prophetic word of things that we see now.  I was so moved by the lyrics because it speaks of this sound of silence.  Here are the full lyrics if you are interested (https://genius.com/Simon-and-garfunkel-the-sound-of-silence-lyrics) 

The song writer address the darkness.  I see this as a place we have all returned to.  We go into the silence of our minds when we are depressed.  We become withdrawn and the darkness feels so familiar, like an old friend of sorts.  When things get bad, we often remember past hurts and we start to compound our feelings of despair.  It is a very silent path that isolates us.  Depression is a sound of silence.

 When he talks about thousands of people talking without speaking, I see the masses of people staring into their phones.  These silent people are everywhere looking down into a neon God they made.  They are communicating in a very silent way.  It is the age we live in right now.  This was a prophetic dream the writer had so long ago.  I see it as a warning.  We could allow our culture to get obsessed with this form of communication or we could make strides to have more real human contact.  God created us with mouths to speak and eyes to look into as you are speaking.  You can go to any public place and see people looking down into their phones.  It is really sad.  The people do not even know they are harming themselves and their relationships with each other through this very addicting pull.  It has been reported that it is one of the most addicting forces in our society.  It is like giving people keys to the alcohol cabinet and saying you can drink all you want.  When you get depressed or anxious, just take a little drink.  Sound familiar to when people use their phones? Indeed. 

Teens are so wrapped up in social media that they can’t have a day off or they will lose a streak with a friend.  A streak is a virtual, on-going thread that requires one to send a photo of themselves to the other person one time a day.  It is represented in Snap chat as a flame.  Isn’t that interesting?  A flame?  A fire burning without really burning.  They keep the fire between them and their friend burning for no other reason than to keep up the number of days.  We all have a number of days and if our value comes from a little flame and how many likes we get, we miss the mark.  It is artificial and fake.  A real friend is there for you.  They will want to walk with you, talk with you, look into your eyes for your approval, instead of the little thumbs up or smiley face emogi.  A real friend carries your load and holds your hand in those dark moments so you do not sit in utter silence where the darkness holds you captive and pretends to be your friend.  That neon looking glow of light will never satisfy the need in a persons heart to be truly loved.    

Even the mainstream media is reporting about the health, social, and emotional implications of the over use of these devices.  They are addicting as most people do not even realize how long they tarry on the internet. Nothing is bad with it if it is used in moderation or as a tool.  It is when it becomes a crutch to fill that silence that seems to leave a person feeling bored.  In waiting rooms where magazines used to be paged through, you see people flipping around on their phones with their finger.  In cars where children used to look out the windows to see how many things their little eyes spy, they are fixed to a screen.  People visiting a beautiful place and they are looking at the photos they took and posting them to social media instead of just taking it into their hearts. 

It is much easier for the parent to leave a child to their devices so they can have more silence.  But is silence the answer?  We need voices to be heard.  We need eyes to see this madness and to stop this echo of silence.  What is the future of our nation?  What will our children be like 20 years from this day?  Will they know how to touch and hold a persons heart with their eyes, hands, and voice?  

The song also says they will hear without listening.  I see this so prevalent.  People hear so many things on their little phones yet because they are so full of blinking lights and beeping sounds, within all the chaos of it all, they really never listen.  It is all just white noise.  And the more I preach my heart out on this matter, the more everyone thinks I am crazy.  They don’t listen.  They only hear me. This silence is like a cancer growing and no one knows that they are making themselves sick with it.  My words are like those silent raindrops.  Like Noah warning the people it would rain so much that it would flood the entire earth in a time there was no word for rain because no one experienced it, I am telling people that this type of silence will be the destruction of everything as we know it one day.  

The little apple on the back of the phone with a little bit out of it, just like the apple in the Garden of Eden, we can know everything.  Just with a click of a button with the tip of our finger.  The other time that people reached a place of knowing all things and nothing was withheld from them to take over the world, God had to confound their languages.  That was the tower of Babel.  We have built towers all over the worlds and satellites to bring everything within our reach.  Every piece of knowledge and every silent triumph that can be made for the entire world to see from every corner of the earth.  Empires are built on a wave of intellectual space in a cloud we can’t touch.  People make millions in an instant and build businesses using a phone.  Yet no one wants to listen.  These phones create a God in our own image.  Selfies invade our digital screens of those that silently need approval because they can’t see past themselves.  It created a narcissistic society who have become so full of themselves.  It is so sad.  It is the opposite of what our creator created us for.  He created us to be family, to be community, to love, to engage with one another daily—physically, not virtually.

The people are all primed and ready for what is to come in the future of this digital age.  When all that we know as reality is a distant silent echo.  We will beg for more.  And never be satisfied.  We will give up our freedoms for more band width and more speed.   The all-seeing, all-knowing God of the cloud will know all things.   Like the beginning when Satan wanted to be like God, this will be a way for the creators of the technologies or those that fund it, to be like a God.  They can find you, they can know your every move.  You will have no privacy.  

It is a fake God with a virtual power to destroy parts of your life only because you gave it permission.  Never will it ever take the place of our true God who seeks our faces.  This false reality that we have built will have facial recognition but it will never know each hair of our heads.  Only the real God has those numbered as with our days.  I serve the God who will break the sound of silence one day with a trumpet and every knee will bow. 

I pray this message will be a little check in your spirit to gather with your loved ones today and enjoy each other’s company.  Eat a meal around your table.  Fellowship more with real people.  Visit people more.  Talk to them more.  Hold their hands more and please, oh please, look into their eyes, more.  You will be so blessed.   

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5 thoughts on “The Sound of Silence”

  1. Thank you for yhis article!! It’s my wish that my family and I minimalize our online time en maximalize our real time <3

  2. Thank you, thank you, thank you for this post.
    I struggle with my stupid phone. I’m totally addicted to it. I don’t even have social media.
    I have known that I need to block the internet on there for a while because of the control it has over me. I think I’m ready to do it now.
    ?

    1. Thank you so much Gloria for writing in. I am so glad that this article has touched you. I have the social media and the cell phone but I have learned to moderate all of it so much that I only go there to minister to others when there is a need. I turned off all the notifications and I just check in when time allows. I was able to control it rather than it control me. So freeing. I pray you can do the same too! God bless you!

  3. Beautifully written and very convicting, Erin! We just celebrated my grandson’s birthday and my husband’s birthday on two different nights with all of the family who are in town. The face-to-face conversation and laughing can never be found in the virtual world many are lost in today. Love you!

    1. Love you so much Lori!!! I am so happy for you that you had that beautiful day of face to face conversation with your loved ones. It is so needed. Thank you for your kind words of encouragement! Hope you had the most glorious Mothers Day!

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