The Sounds of Silence

And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more.
People talking without speaking,
People hearing without listening,
People writing songs that voices never share
And no one dare
Disturb the sound of silence.

The Sound of Silence, Paul Simon & Art Garfunkel

Life is unpredictable. Catastrophic events happen without warning and, through no fault of our own, life as we know it is obliterated. Be it the loss of a home, the loss of one’s health, or the loss of a loved one, we can usually count on each other to be there for the tragic moments. Thankfully, we are pretty good about reminding each other that grief and all the complicated emotions are normal and we make it okay for those who are hurting to say so.

But most of the suffering we face throughout life isn’t born of some obvious calamity or devastating loss. Most of it stems from internal emotional and spiritual wounds that are anything but obvious, hurts we carry around all the time yet rarely put into words.

When our souls carry pain we can’t even define ourselves and we struggle with feelings that don’t seem normal at all, what we fear is that we aren’t normal at all.

Having labeled our “issues” as unacceptable, unforgivable, unbelievable, or inexcusable, we aren’t about to risk misunderstanding, criticism, or judgment of others. We figure it’s best to keep our “broken-ness” to ourselves, so we do.

Silent Screams are nothing new. In 2 Samuel 13, David’s own daughter, Tamar, was raped by Amnon, one of his sons. ….

Keep silent? Don’t take this matter to heart?!

That verse ends like this: “And Tamar lived in her brother Absalom's house, a desolate woman.”

I’m sure she did.

“Most men lead lives of quiet desperation,” observed Henry Davis Thoreau, and if that was true in the 1800s, nothing has changed in our day.

When threatened by our own feelings of inadequacy and insignificance, we work hard to act confident because we want others to think we’ve got it all together.

Ironically, the strong faces we put on for protection leave us isolated, interrupted, and indefinite.

Desiring authentic connection but unwilling to risk rejection, we are left without really being known. If we pretend long enough and well enough, we won’t even know ourselves anymore.

“The temptation of the age is to settle for looking good, for holding everything together on the surface while everything is falling apart underneath.” (Fully Human, Fully Alive by John Powell.)

“While it may seem to be a safer life behind these facades, it is also a lonely life. We cease to be authentic, and as persons we starve to death.” (John Powell, Why Am I Afraid To Love?)

The truth is, all of those “issues” we are so guarded about, the ones we think make us so weird, don’t make us that different from anyone else. We ALL share a story about deliverance; we share a Father who saw something we didn’t see in ourselves and a Savior who wouldn’t give up on us - even when we had.

Using the acronym SCREAMS and through a mixture of quotes from scripture, music, and various other sources, let’s take a candid look at the following “issues” that often hide behind those carefully constructed shields of silence:

Sin, Confusion, Rejection, Emptiness, Anxiety, Misery, Shame.

Hopefully, as we learn to better understand our own silence, forgive ourselves, and accept ourselves, we will be more sensitive to the cries of hurting people around us; perhaps we can inspire others to believe that they, too, can find their way home.

Until Next Time, Kim