Silent treatment.

If I were a doctor and someone came into my office complaining of a nervous stomach, dull headache, and a feeling of anxiety, I'd grab my pad and write out a prescription without saying a word. My patient would probably laugh at my instructions and hurry off to get a second opinion. But that's OK. What works for me might not work for someone else. What would I prescribe for all nay stressed-out patients? Silence.

In every job I've had--pilot, schoolteacher, radio and video producer, writer, and editor--I've discovered a growing need for moments of total silence. At the end of a long day of flying, I'd sit in my airplane as the gyros spun down, listening to the cooling engine click and thump. Then a welcoming silence would wash over me. In the classroom after the children go home, in the abandoned studio after the cameras stop rolling, in the hush of the woods behind my house after a day filled with whirring computers, clicking keyboards, and jangling phones I find the tranquil solitude I need.

At a recent church convention, I had to sneak away from the noisy exhibit hall each day. I'd find a secluded corner and press my fingers into my ears for five minutes. Seems even laboring for God can get nerve-racking with all that praising, preaching, and promoting going on. But it worked. I returned to my duties ready to face the pressing throngs.

I wonder if, when Jesus chased the moneychangers from the Temple, He was trying to say, "How can you 'be still and know that I am God' with all this racket?" I even like my church services quiet. Always have. Guess I'm not the beating-drum, crashing-cymbal, wailing-guitar type when it comes to worshipping my Creator. Again, I'm only speaking for myself. Or am I?

Maybe the stress that's so prevalent in this world today is, in part, caused by how loud it's become. Perhaps if we all switched off our televisions and radios, put away our iPods and cell phones, and sat alone in total silence for a few minutes each day, we'd finally hear that comforting "still, small voice" of God that's been trying to communicate with us for so long.

Something to think about.

Charles Mills 

EDITOR