Silence is Good Medicine

I stared at the pin on the map. This was the location of my son —hiking solo in the mountains of Chile. Thanks to technology, we’d been able to FaceTime twice during this odyssey.

This was a journey to a place he’d never been, but had always wanted to see. With mountaineering training, and his high school-level Spanish, he met locals and explored thoroughly.

He traversed miles by bus, ferry, and catamaran, through regions of Argentina and Chile. Hiking nearly eighty-five miles of mountainous terrain took him to new heights in an unforgettable place.

But it was the quiet hours—after another fifteen-mile hike, and before the sky darkened near ten p.m.—that left him alone with his thoughts. He pulled out a small notebook and wrote pages of reflections.

I remembered that feeling.

I once stuffed my great-grandfather’s logger backpack with a few days’ worth of provisions. I took rope to string it up in a tree—as if a bear couldn’t climb—and then headed north toward the Canadian border. Deep in the forest, where the path was less traveled, and no one could hear me talk to myself, I walked on.

Back then, I felt I needed to get lost to find myself.

As I thought about my son, writing by his tent on a mountainside, I was reminded how good it is to step away from the noise and the constant interference of life.  Silence can be soul-healing.

I still escape to the woods, where my thoughts return only when life’s volume is turned down.

We can hear our thoughts—and hear from God—when we step away from the noise.

And in a noisy world, silence is good medicine.

“ …and after the fire came a gentle whisper.” 1 Kings 19:11-12