Hi-Fi Faith: Cultivating Silence and Curating Holy Sound

Silence is not so much a tool as it is a toolbox, or at least a storage tray or organizer within the toolbox. Our modern world has become so noisy that even secular professionals are advocating for things like Tech Sabbaths and trading the beachside Airbnb for a monastery for your next vacation. It's no wonder that simply walking into church can immediately relax and calm us, assaulted as we are by the buzz of tech, people, and modernity.

I am an introvert. I spent my childhood reading, writing, playing chess, and working out alone in my parents' garage. In high school, I anchored our bowling team, and despite weekly practices, multiple leagues, and weekend meets, my favorite time on the lanes was when I was alone. Later on, it was not uncommon for people to lose track of me at parties; like a cat, I would simply wander off and find a quiet place to recharge my social battery a bit.

I grew up in a modern home with multiple TVs, gaming systems, and the Internet. Before I started my career as a boiler operator (a noisy profession if there ever was one), I learned to work hard in the fray and cacophony of kitchens. I played and listened to heavy metal, and even after my musical tastes moved on, I still cranked Billie Joel and CCR.

Yet by the time I came back to the church, I had learned a lot about myself and the kinds of things and environments that suited my introverted nature. As I took my spiritual life more seriously, I spent more time in Adoration and silent prayer at home. One day, it occurred to me just how quiet my daily life had become, even while running a steam plant and raising (at the time) 3 kids.

Today, my life is busier and louder than ever. With six kids, a dog, my job, and never-ending lists of commitments, noise follows me like a second shadow. Consequently, I've had to make a concerted effort to cultivate moments of silence, often at the expense of sleep or "fun" activities.

While silence is a good and necessary part of any serious journey toward God, most of us can only find so much in a day before pursuing it becomes unfruitful, imprudent, or both. What we must do then is take the silence when and where we can, and prioritize and guard it fiercely. We must also do our best to curate the sound around us whenever possible. If we must live in noise, we can at least try to make it "better" noise. I'll share how my family works toward this, and maybe you can implement one or two examples in your own life.

Sound Quality

When my wife and I bought our house, we agreed on one thing above everything else- no TV in the living room. We intentionally set up an area of the basement to be a home theater. Cable TV was not part of that equation. With a singular TV in an out-of-sight part of the house, vegging in front of mindless programming isn't really an option. Most of the time, when the TV is on, it's because we're all gathered in front of it, often playing family-friendly video games. My wife and I have never been big on TV, so our kids don't see it as an example of something to do; other things become family activities, like cooking family dinners together.

Another thing my wife and I quickly agreed on was not having electronic toys (apart from some remote-controlled cars). While a few have snuck in over the years, overall we've done a decent job (except for the time I absent-mindedly put batteries in several toys we had been telling the kids "must have been broke"...sorry dear...)

Every family member loves music, but not every genre is conducive to creating a serene home environment (as serene as a household of eight can be). The living room stereo typically plays two channels: Bach (my favorite) and other classical composers, as well as instrumental covers of contemporary music. There's plenty of science behind listening to classical music, but I can personally attest to its effects. Having calming, instrumental music playing in the shared family space cultivates a less anxious and more attentive atmosphere. You don't have to force Mozart on your kids (though you have my full support in doing so), but you'd be surprised by the effect even instrumental covers of modern music can have over time.

The Sound of Silence

I have three major chunks of quiet time most days. These are in the morning before work, in the evening after the younger kids are in bed, and my weekly Holy Hour. I get up early to have quiet time to pray, and my wife and I pray the Examen together in the evening. While my morning quiet is rarely interrupted, the evenings can get a little loud and less conducive to prayer. In light of these, I instituted a Quiet Hour in our house Sunday-Thursday night beginning around 830 PM. The idea was met with mild resistance, but I explained to my four eldest that a Quiet Hour didn't have to mean you practiced imitating a statue. Rather, its a time to color, paint, draw, read, pray, or even use the home gym. This practice assures my wife and me have ample time to get our Examen in, and the best part is that, after an hour of quiet time near the end of the day, the kids are rarely interested in turning the volume back up; most of our nights just continue on in relative peace.

My morning quiet time is a sacrifice, but like missing a workout, I feel off-kilter if I don't get it. I try to have an hour of quiet time in the morning, with a bit more on the weekends. If you're life looks drastically different from mine, five or ten minutes might be the best you can hope for, and even that might be spent locked in a bathroom praying no small humans discover you. Prioritize quality over quantity; if God wanted you to live in silence, He would have called you to a Carthusian monastery.

My weekly Holy Hour is an essential part of my spiritual life and part of what keeps me grounded and sane in the midst of an often hectic life. Just as with morning quiet time for prayer, you should prioritize quality over quantity.

Bring the Noise

There is a kind of holy noise unique to the domestic church. It is a combination of dishes clanking, bathtubs filling, kids laughing and crying, and dinner plates being set. I firmly believe that a modicum of peace can and should be expected in your home, but if you have a bunch of kids like I do, it is both unwise and imprudent to expect them to be anything other than what they are. Dogs bark and kids are loud, that's life. It can be tempting to holler for quiet after a long day at work or when your last nerve ducked out hours ago, and the dog is barking because the kids are chasing it around the living room. I get it, believe me. Yet it's important to remember that the Enemy is constantly trying to shift our perspective into either the past or future, while God desires us to be present to Him and to the situation we are in. If we listen to the Accuser, the Thief of Our Peace, we can forget that the sounds of our domestic churches are actually their own kind of symphony, one that we'll miss when the last note fades. If you're a parent, there is a certain amount of noise you just live with, but you don't have to let the Devil convince you that kids playing a bit too loudly is anything other than the blessing it is.

Silence and the quality of the sound you allow in your domestic church are two sides of the same coin. Sacrifice where you must for the silence, curate the sound when you can, and when all else fails, embrace the racket.