My Path to Silence by Frances Robson

Good evening and come on in to the Net Porch. I am in a contemplative mood today and thought I would share some of my thoughts with you. It's not often I share my thoughts with others but today is a little different so "Listen my children and you shall hear."

Ya'll know that I enjoy my peace and quiet out here in the country and unless I have to I don't leave home. The life of a part-time hermit suits me just fine. This is partly due to how I grew up. I was raised in the little, bitty community of Canton Bend which is about 5 miles from Camden, AL which is in Wilcox County. The county has the Alabama River flowing through it and was and still is mostly wooded. It is a beautiful part of this world. We had about 40 acres of beautiful land on which daddy farmed some but a large part of it was in trees with a creek running through the back part of the place.

As children growing up out there in the country we roamed those woods, waded in the creek, and loved it then and we still love it. It gave me an appreciation for living in the country and that is where I am the happiest. I was and am seldom lonesome, not afraid and enjoy the peace and quiet. We learned to enjoy the silence of our world and to be comfortable with ourselves and we developed a need to be alone at times and just listen to the silent sounds.

Several weeks ago I made a statement in one of my postings about the "sounds of silence" and some of you were a little puzzled about what I was talking about. How can silence have sounds? When I wrote this sentence, I knew exactly what I was thinking and trying to convey but I forget that sometimes my mind operates a little differently from others and may be a little strange to some. It is from living in the woods a large part of my life and communing with myself, reading many, many books and having an active imagination where I created my own little world sometimes or a lot of the time.

I cherish solitude and have developed the ability to isolate myself in my magic world of silence even in the midst of a cacaphony of sounds. It is seldom our world is quiet and we need to isolate ourselves in our silent world to cope with this hectic, noisy world in which we live. This is my Sounds of Silence.

Sounds of Silence means an absence of man-made sounds - TV, cars passing, I pods, Blackberries and all other electronic devices, people, and any noises made by people or things. It is a place where the only sounds you hear are those which God created - birds, the wind blowing through the leaves, water rippling as it runs along it's bed, occasional bark of a dog, the soft meow of a cat, the insects as they softly buzz around us, and those precious times when you hear absolutely nothing except your own thoughts.

These moments are precious to me and I cherish each one of them and seek them out whenever I can. It's at these times when I can hear God speak to me as I listen for His voice, I am sung to by a choir of birds, the wind blowing soflty is the background music and I am at peace with God, myself and the world.

Sometimes I listen to my own thoughts as they race through my mind and other times I hear the voice of God speaking through my thoughts. He said to withdraw and listen to Him and whether I am in the quiet places or in the quiet places I make in the midst of many sounds, I can hear Him.

This what I mean about the Sounds of Silence. It those times when we shut out the sounds of people and things and hear only those sounds that God gave us. I pray you can love the silent sounds as much as do and can learn to create your own silence and learn to enjoy God's. I am so thankful for the privilege and blessing to live out in the country where I can find the silent sounds most anytime and if you would like come, sit and enjoy them with me. The only requirement is that you can't talk, just listen to the Sounds of Silence.

Ya'll come back to see me.

Nuff said,

The Georgia Peach