The Music We Stop Hearing

A few evenings ago I stepped out onto the porch just as the sun began to settle behind the trees in the western sky. And suddenly I heard it...

Cicadas.

Not one or two or ten, but thousands of them! Their steady reeee-aah, reeee-aah, reeee-aah chorus filled the woods around our farmhouse.

But the funny thing was, they hadn’t suddenly started singing. They’d probably been singing for days — maybe a week, maybe longer.

I was the one who came late to the party and finally started listening. Now at night, of course, I can’t not hear them. As soon as I step outside each evening to water the garden, they’re there—the unmistakable soundtrack to a Missouri summer.

Cicada song makes me wonder how many beautiful things in our lives don’t disappear...we simply stop noticing them.

Just like there are soundtracks in movies, our lives have their own soundtracks. The hum of the refrigerator in the kitchen, and the louder more annoying hum of the refrigerator in the garage.

The tap-tap-tap of the woodpeckers pounding their heads against a tree, and the wind moving through the leaves of that same tree. The distant whistle of freight trains, and the soft clink of porch swing chains.

And most days, I don’t consciously hear any of it because my brain has quietly moved it into the background.

It turns out that ignoring things is one of the remarkable things our minds are designed to do. Noticing every sound with equal intensity all the time quickly becomes overwhelming, so our brains helpfully sort the familiar into the background.

It’s a wonderful gift.

Until it isn’t.

The sound of cicadas has me wondering whether I do the same thing with more than sounds.

Do we also tune out goodness? Do we focus so much on all we have to do when we get where we’re going, that we just don’t see the beauty of the country road we’re actually driving on? Do the bags of groceries that need to be put away blind us to the comfort of once again returning safely home.

I’ve often said that the opposite of love isn’t hate…it’s indifference. Perhaps a similar thing is true of gratitude. What if the opposite of gratitude isn’t complaining but simply no longer noticing all the wonderfulness that quietly surrounds us?

The beautiful gift of another ordinary Tuesday simply fades into the background until we hardly notice all we’ve been given.

One of my favorite stories in Scripture (and one I relate to oh so well) is Elijah standing on the mountain waiting for God.

First a great wind blows through, but God isn’t in the wind. Then there’s an earthquake, but God’s not in in the earthquake. Next up is fire, but God’s not there either.

Finally comes what many of Bibles translate as “a still small voice.” But I’ve always loved another translation of the Hebrew: “the sound of thin silence.” — 1 Kings 19:12

What a remarkable phrase!

The sound...of silence, and not just any silence but “thin silence” — it almost feels like a contradiction, yet the meaning is completely clear: God isn’t always found in the spectacular. Sometimes Presence arrives so quietly that we almost miss it.

Which, if I’m being honest, is especially comforting to someone like me who also carries around a bit of tinnitus. There is already plenty of ringing in my ears!

Maybe what God asks of isn’t to hear more noise but to become attentive to the quiet.

And here during Ordinary Time, I’ve been discovering the joy that comes with recovering our ability to notice what has become familiar.

A cup of coffee in the morning. An evening breeze…and the sound of cicadas. The people who faithfully share our ordinary days.

The invitation of Ordinary Time is simply to hear them again, see them again, receive them again.

A Question: What has become background music in your life? What good gift has become so familiar that you’ve stopped noticing it?

An Invitation: This week, step outside for ten quiet minutes. Leave your phone inside. Don’t try to accomplish anything. Simply listen.

Listen long enough for the familiar sounds —the birds, the wind, the distant traffic, and your own brood of cicadas — to become new again. Listen for the sound of thin silence between the sounds.

You may discover that the world has been singing to you all along.

And perhaps gratitude begins not by finding something new...but by hearing once again what has always been there.

With you in the growing,

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