Our world is loud.
Not just in volume—but in voices. Competing voices. Constant opinions. Notifications chiming, headlines shouting, people talking over one another, each convinced they have something urgent to say and that WHAT they are saying is t. It’s a lot. Some days it feels like there’s no off switch—just a steady hum of noise that settles into the background of our lives until we almost forget it’s there.
Almost.
Because the moment it stops—or even softens—we notice.
This semester has been heavy for me. The kind of heavy that sits on your shoulders and follows you from room to room. Assignments, deadlines, responsibilities… all good things, but all demanding space in my mind. It would be easy to fill every spare second with more noise—TV on in the background, scrolling just to “check out” for a minute—but I’ve noticed something surprising.
When Mark is away for a night and a day, I rarely turn the TV on.
The house gets quiet.
And instead of reaching for noise, I find myself reaching for something else. I write. I read. I study. Not because I have to (though often I do), but because the quiet makes space for it. The absence of noise feels like an invitation—one I didn’t realize I needed.
It’s not dramatic or profound in the moment. There’s no grand revelation. Just a steady, gentle rhythm of focus and calm. And somehow, in that quiet, things feel a little more manageable.
But quiet moments don’t only come in long stretches.
Sometimes they show up in the middle of the chaos.
In the middle of a stressful day—when the to-do list feels impossible and my mind is racing—I can pause. Just for a moment. Take a deep breath. Let it out slowly. As I breathe in, I say a breath prayer - "Breathe in Holy Spirit," and as I breathe out, I say "Breathe out self." I might close my eyes, even if just for a few seconds.
That’s it.
A quiet moment.
And it helps.
It doesn’t erase the noise waiting on the other side of that breath, but it softens it. It reminds me that I don’t have to match the pace of everything around me. That I can step out of the rush, even briefly, and find a little stillness. I just have to remember to do this!!
Those moments matter.
They don’t demand attention the way noise does. They don’t compete or clamor or insist. But they make life better in quieter, steadier ways. They give us space to think, to feel, to breathe.
In a world full of competing voices, quiet moments are a gift.
And sometimes, they’re as simple as choosing not to turn the TV on… or remembering to take one deep breath right in the middle of it all.
Do you need noise all of the time or do you enjoy quiet, too?
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