Exploring Quiet

Someone came to Emerging Kids clicking on "exploring quiet with children". Intriguing!

A very fun thing to do with most any age is just that. Sit still and don't make a sound. The inevitable contradiction of it all is that you hear things - all the things you never hear when you're not quiet.

When my two oldest kids were little. They had a little friend who had battled ear infections her entire 3-4 years of life. They finally put tubes in her ears. On the way home from the doctor while they were riding in the car the little girl said, "What's that?" It took some time but her very wise mother finally understood that she was hearing the motor of the car for the first time in a very long time. When she flushed the toilet, the little girl was again surprised at this new world of sounds.

People think sitting out in the country at night is "quiet." Try it. People think sitting out in the country at night is "dark." Same thing.

You might have to wait 10-15 minutes but is it really quiet? Is it really dark?

I used to like to sit beside a small waterfall off in the woods. A picture would look quiet and serene. Though I could easily convince myself that this was a quiet place, the reality wasn't that quiet. The reality was that the sound of the water happened to block out all the other sounds.

Why do we tell children to be "quiet"? To hear something they can't hear when they're noisy? So a grown-ups can hear each other? So a grown-up can "think"? (still something to listen to) To rest or go to sleep?"

I keep coming back to quiet as an opportunity to hear what you can't hear when you're not quiet. But what about a quiet devoid of sound? What about when God said, "Be still and know that I am God." Growing, knowing, in a very still place . . . I never realized before that the place described in Psalm 46:10 is likened to a battle field at the end of a battle. Wow! I always thought about it as that quiet place in the woods.

Quiet, still, stillness, silence - great word study!

Is quiet an absence of sound? Selective sound? Volume control? What is the quietest place you've ever been? What made it quiet? Why do you remember it as a quiet place? Was anyone there? Was God there?

. . . exploring "quiet" with children. Have fun with that!