The hay stands shoulder-high as I walk the path around the John Deere-mowed fields. To my right and to my left, the thick, emerald-green hay sways with languid grace. If I sat down, no one would ever see me.
In this day and age, it feels like everyone is talking, and I’m getting more and more tired of the chatter. More and more, I don’t want to be found.
Social media has made each of us the CEO of a private media organization, and we are being told that if we want to succeed and compete, we must have a voice. We need to not only be found, but grow in numbers and elevate our platform.
With anyone able to broadcast or comment on a whim, we are drowned out by a cacophony of noise in general. Now, with so much competition, even the largest media networks reach only a fraction of their former audiences.
What is there to say when everything has been said and thoroughly analyzed? Even Jesus, who roamed his hometown to meet new audiences, suddenly slipped away to seek solitude and remain mostly silent. Even the Buddha modeled silence to impart his greatest teachings. How far should the rest of us distance ourselves?
My good friend, Brother Martin Gonzalez, who passed away in 2021, told me about his time taking a vow of silence in a Trappist monastery. As an extroverted young man, he found the vow oppressive and exhausting. But after the practice was abolished (thanks to Vatican II), he found chatter most oppressive. He thought: I wish we could go back to silence! Later, when his post-war hearing loss became so severe that he had to wear hearing aids, he was happy to be able to turn them off.
We all need a power off switch, or maybe we just need a moment of silence, a break from social discourse.
What do we hear in the silence?
Ren, Bronze Medal Winner of the 2022 Independent Publishers Awards
Winner of the Bronze Medal for Regional Fiction at the 2022 Independent Publisher Awards. Finalist for the 2022 National Indie Excellence Awards. (2021) Paperback edition of Len , Fiction. “An insightful novel that explores issues of parenthood, marriage, and friendship with subtlety and sympathy, and is laced with striking descriptions of the Oregon landscape.”Kirkus Review (2018) Wren Audiobook Publishing.
