“A strong and heavy wind was rending the mountains and crushing rocks before the Lord—but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake—but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake there was fire—but the Lord was not in the fire. After the fire there was a tiny whispering sound” 1 Kings 19:11b—12.
God was in the whisper. But can our society—our generation especially—hear Him? A technological overload of noisy static has besieged most of us since childhood. Texting, Facebook, Twitter and Youtube—all these instantaneous modes of communication have rapidly developed and permeated into our lives that we experience them as givens.
Look at Facebook, the most notorious socializing tool among our peers. A typical session is filled with the static of notifications, looking at pictures taken for the sake of taking pictures, and status updates we do not remember ten minutes later.
And what do we get each time we log on? What do we have to show for it?
You do not come away from technology rested, but emptier than before you used it. The computer screen, and the phone screen act in the same capacity—as a drug that robs our time and saps our energy, giving us the fix of a pseudo-social encounter while depriving us of that face-to-face interaction so integrally essential to human experience.
It would be a sad thing to find oneself ten or twenty years later having only lived vicariously through a screen. So start now—set aside 30 minutes a day of silent contemplation where you clear the static from your mind.
On those warm days we still have left, stake out a spot on the Bapst lawn and just sit and listen. Allot some time for sitting in St. Mary’s Garden or visiting St. Mary’s Chapel. In small reprieves like these, perhaps we can hear more attentively that whispering voice which is our Creator.
Some might scoff at this as unproductive, but in the grand scheme, how wasteful is it really to listen to the wind or see the clouds go by? So long as we have tunnel vision while we walk and text at the same time, we will never be able to discern His presence in the world and in others.
In The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis examined the strategy underscoring Satan’s operations through correspondence between a fictional demon and his nephew.
In one letter, the uncle extolled the very noise that seems to characterize the ubiquity of technology in our times.
The demon uncle wrote, “We will make the whole universe a noise in the end. We have already made great strides in this direction as regards the Earth. The melodies and silences of Heaven will be shouted down in the end.”
If 1 Kings has it right that God is in the whisper, then surely the conjecture by C.S. Lewis that the Devil seeks to fill our lives with static is not at all “just” fiction. Noise that keeps us from contemplative awe of God is surely the objective of the Evil One.
To each of us, then, the question is posed, “Will you live your life dominated by noise or centered on the whisper?” In the end, it makes all the difference.
