I’m not at all opposed to the wonderful sounds of life. I laugh so loudly I am told I can be heard from great distances.

That said, the multiple tv screens and music playing over speakers dominate coffee shops, restaurants, waiting areas – almost anywhere.  Even gas pumps have implemented advertisement commercials as you pump your gas. Once I saw a person watching the news on tv while simultaneously watching the same news on his phone.

But there is a diabolical method to the madness of the noise that consumes our world.

In his brilliant Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis’ senior demon, Screwtape, counsels his nephew apprentice:

“…silence—how I detest [it]! How thankful we should be that ever since our Father (the devil) entered Hell—…no square inch of infernal space and no moment of infernal time has been surrendered to [this] force [silence], but all has been occupied by Noise— …Noise, the grand dynamism, the audible expression of all that is exultant, ruthless, and virile… We will make the whole universe a noise in the end.”

Screwtape later describe hell’s goal to make our world a “kingdom of noise.”

The 19th/20th century Quaker and scholar, Thomas Kelly, wrote his classic, A Testament of Devotion, in 1941.  In contrast to Uncle Screwtape, Kelly writes,

“We have hints that there is a way of life vastly richer and deeper than all this hurried existence, a life of unhurried serenity and peace and power…”

He goes on to write from where this “vastly richer and deeper” existence originates:

“Deep within us all (Christians) there is an amazing inner sanctuary of the soul, a holy place, a Voice speaking… It is the Shekinah of the soul, the Presence in our midst…[where] the secret places of the heart cease to be our noisy workshops… “

It is no easy effort to make time for holy silence. Ask Jesus to help you find it.

“Be still and know that I am God.” (Psalm 46:10)

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