The Peace of Silence

Two weeks ago I decided to do something rather different for a Monday evening. I went for a walk. Well, not just a walk but also an adventurous photographic exploration of the great unknown. I snuck under the gate of an abandoned farm at the end of the road, camera and tripod in hand, and decided to captured whatever images of art and beauty my eyes could see. You see, there were some pretty purple flowers in the pasture that drew my interest at first, then some white blossoms that seemed to be randomly planted between the purple ones. Then there was this old tree stump and an old wooden fence that at one time were a majestic oak tree and its gleaming white friend. Along the fence ran a rutty winding dirt road, which also bordered a old stock pond and its companion, a rusty grain silo. Indeed, there was a lot of neat things to photograph at Green Acres Farm. But what made an impact on me perhaps more than anything else was the most noticeable thing out there: the silence. There was relative silence and peace. No televisions, no computers, no phones ringing with telemarketers, no noisy neighbors... none of that. Just the birds and the turtles, the flowers and the trees, the little things of God's creation that we often pass by on our way to our noisy jobs in our noisy cars with our noisy cell phones just waiting to disrupt our new day. Perhaps there is great peace in silence because we don't have enough silence in our lives. Maybe our prayer lives struggle because we don't plan any silence into our days. Maybe all we need is a little walk down the street every now and then to find out what we truly are missing. Peace and quiet.