There’s just TOO much noise. Everywhere. Next door, inside and outside. I find myself SCREAMING: “Silence! There’s too much noise!” I need to be silent! But nothing changes. Inside I am still screaming.
Today I need it. I long for it. As if I would rather be hard of hearing or deaf today. As if the noise is JUST TOO MUCH that I would swop my place with anyone who cannot hear.
As I lay here I tell myself: “don’t listen then”. Just as I think I cannot anymore a voice pops into my being and screams at me “Listen! listen for ME!” I strain my person and my being. I reach inward and search. A tiny, sweet and perfect sound is found. My heartbeat. I can hear it! I listen. I strain my ear to find every one single beat. I hear it! I find it!
A heartbeat that’s perfect. So REAL and it’s reminding me that a breath and a heartbeat join together to cause me to hear and ultimately I find my “listen”. What becomes more relevant is my heartbeat.
“I’ve begun to realize that you can listen to silence and learn from it. It has a quality and a dimension all its own.”
Chaim Potok, The Chosen
My ability to breathe. And my ability to hear and to listen. Even the noise, even the ghastly sounds of life outside this bedroom. The screeching sounds of car engines, machinery and dogs barking.
I listen. I lay here listening. And almost immediately the noise becomes a melody of my hearing. I can hear the sounds. I can listen. I don’t want the SILENCE anymore. I feel the surrounding of the noise and the silence is lost. I am alive to LISTEN. I do not want it to be SILENT.
See what happened? Instead of wanting to be SILENT I must LISTEN. They are the same but yet so different.
Glenda McMinn @ Finding His lap & Heartbeat 
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