Skip to main content

Quiet and Loud: Not A Matter of Volume?


Make it your ambition to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business and to work with your hands, just as we told you, so that your daily life may win the respect of outsiders and so that you will not be dependent on anybody (I Thessalonians 4:11-12)
            In our age of desperate attention-seeking, overloaded with selfies and status updates, it's a bit of a challenge to consider living a quiet life that wins respect. This might be partly because in our society, there is so little consensus about what quiet person is like, or what is worthy of respect. I value being quiet, but I'm not usually either afraid or reluctant to speak my mind. I want to be invisible, but I feel driven to express what I believe to be truth. As I read through Paul's letters, I find myself concluding that I'm a third rate Paul (OK, I'm not sure I'd rank as high as a third rate.)
            I'm not sure that's what Paul was writing about to the Thessalonians. Over the past couple  years, I've read a couple books on the Civil Rights Movements of the 50s ad 60s. Camelot And The Cultural Revolution argues that the assassination of John F. Kennedy ended one Civil Rights Movement and started another, darker one. I'm not sure the timing is exact, and I'm not sure that the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. was not part of what caused that change, but the point is that what started as peaceful demonstrations and civil disobedience became violence, and that method remains with  us today. In our society it's about power over others, not power over one-self.
         Is this the difference between quiet and loud? Quiet does not retreat, but it is gentle. Loud may or may not retreat, but it is violent. Quiet would rather work in the garden, loud cannot wait to get to the streets. Quiet spends decades working for end an injustice. Loud loots and destroys. Quiet convinces. Loud shames.  Quiet may be respected. Loud is (at best) feared. Quiet can and will stand alone. Loud is looking for an audience, and is dependent on that audience for support.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Saved?

  I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all; no one can snatch them out of my Father’s hand. I and the Father are one.” (John 10:28-30) “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ Then I will tell them plainly, “I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’ ” (Matthew 7:21-23) Not at all! Let God be true, and every human being a liar. As it is written: “So that you may be proved right when you speak and prevail when you judge.” (Romans 3:4)   What conclusion do you draw when someone who was raised in a Christian family and church, perhaps even playing a significant role in a chur...
Post a Comment
Read more

A Virgin?

           Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel. (Isaiah 7:14)           This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. (Matthew 1:18)           But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, you have found favor with God. You will be with child and give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever; his kingdom will never end.”            “How will this be,” Mary asked the...
Post a Comment
Read more

Meditations of the Heart

  May these words of my mouth and this meditation of my heart be pleasing in your sight, Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer. (Psalm19:14)           As I started writing this post, I noted that the meditations of my heart are all over the mental landscape, from a hub where eight superhighways come together to a lunar or nuclear landscape. Do you see my error? The moment I read the word meditation , I think about thoughts. But what’s described here is the meditations of our hearts ; our wills.           While the meditations of our minds may be all over the place, the meditations of our wills tend to be a little more stable by the time we are adults. We no longer tend to want to pursue the ten separate careers we did in any given day as children. Part of this is humble acceptance of reality. We come to understand that we can’t do it all. I think another part of it is disappointmen...
Post a Comment
Read more