Silence isn’t Always Golden

My brain chatter is out of control, especially during quiet times. I have to verbalize almost every thought. Librarians hate me.

I told my son the other night that a lot of people talk more than I do.

“Nope,” was his response as he left the room.

Some people have a need for speed, but I have a need for sound. I walk in my house and immediately turn on the television. I sit out on the deck surrounded by beautiful, wooded silence, and read voraciously so I can hear myself tell a story.

I can clear a room of introverts in five seconds flat.

People have spent years telling me about the importance of meditation, but I tend to talk right through it.

I always had the fear that had I been Noah, the ark would have never been built. I would have said, “I heard a voice today tell me to build an ark, but I was in the middle of talking to my mom on the phone, so it could have been static,” or “Someone was talking about cubics today on my walk, but I was trying to analyze a dream I had last night about a large boat and I didn’t really hear it.”

If silence is golden, then I’m a very affordable metal . . .

Most quotes about silence are in favor of it; written by introverts, they determine that it’s only in silence that we will find life’s path. It’s only in the quiet that true power is found.

Oddly, I didn’t talk until I was almost three years-old. So I think I’ve been making up for lost time.

Now that I’m in my fifties, I’m finally learning to be okay with myself.

My verbosity served me well as a preacher’s kid in the 60’s, when we went to the homes of new members in the church and sat on their plastic-covered couches, our thighs screaming for relief. My brother and sister were very quiet, but I would ask questions of our hosts and compliment their homes and tell funny stories.

I was the opening act, getting the crowd energized.

Unfortunately, I don’t always know when to turn the act off. Funerals loosen my tongue and infuse me with a weird levity. At my dad’s visitation, I shared the story of a pastor who came to pray over dad while he was extremely ill with cancer and in a deep, painful sleep.  I thought the prayer would never end.

I had to listen to at least forty-two “just Lord’s” while dad’s eyes stayed firmly shut. After the well-meaning pastor finally left, I leaned over to my thin, sleeping father and said, “If you make me sit through one more prayer like that, I will kill you before the cancer does.” My dad’s face broke into a smile, even though he never opened his eyes.

Others don’t get to dictate our gifts. . .

We need to be careful before we change ourselves based upon the latest book or our friend’s opinion.

Because we’re all unique, and our life’s path could require those elements that drive some people crazy.

Let’s hug those gifts we’ve been given, and figure out where they can lead us. And if somebody else doesn’t like that part of us? It’s okay.

It’s our gift to value.