The world is so full of noise.
Everyone has their opinions about everything. Everyone must tell their stories. Everyone must share, fight, kick, scream, battle, have, take, give, feel, and live. It's like a loud, crazy zoo sometimes. I hate this zoo.
I feel like lives of so many people are mere constructions of their lives around personal preferences, and to break patterns built from those preferences is counted as great and unacceptable trespass. This hyper-individualism has filled the world with a buzz of lifestyles, opinions, and just plain ignorance that violently shakes my sanity. It's not a good thing to preach nonsense on a street corner just because one is convicted that something is true. It's just adding to the noise.
We speak highly about strong opinions, tolerant attitudes, spirited people, reasonable positions, "being yourself" - in what way are those things related to what is true? Why are we afraid to say that we think someone or some position is wrong? How do someone's opinions relate to what is actually true? Why do people seek to merely "vent" to each other, rather than seek reality and true answers to their problems? Why are we so afraid of truth, and why have we trained ourselves in such a way that makes truth hurt us rather than build us up? Why do we privilege our personal interpretations of the world rather than actively seek an articulation of truth? Why does what is true not matter enough to us to be okay with being wrong sometimes?
Sometimes, I so desire silence, that it overcomes what is good in me. I don't want to have to spend life always detangling all the idea-cords that are knotted together in poorly thought-out philosophies. I don't want to have to fight not only philosophies, but egos, too. I want silence, reason, humility, patience, understanding. I want people to be my friends and partners in life, not other things that I have to fight or defend myself against.
In reality, I don't think it's exactly silence that I crave. I'm looking for a kind of togetherness with others that is built of love, which is enduring, trusting, honest, hard-working, hopeful, patient, and willing to work. The silence I'm seeking is a silence of words, an absence of those delicious words that lack any too specific of a meaning, or words that sway you into a position that has forgotten its relationship to truth. I want an end to those amorphous ideas that are vomited up in cute phrases and more displays of alignments to truth and love through action and attitude alone.
I wish desperately for a focus on love, truth, and quiet humility. But perhaps my feelings on this are just more noise that I also hate - I wish simply to act well and express God's grace on others. My impatience with others exposes my two conflicting positions: 1) I just want to love everyone, but can become overwhelmed with the goal, and 2) I want everyone to want to love everyone, too. I have to learn to let go of the second position, and more fully embrace the first. This is a hard task indeed, to try to love without doing it for the exchange of love returned to me, or even because it will help people along their way. I must work harder to love for Love's sake, simply because it is good to love, simply because I love love.
I have so much to learn about how to love, and what it means to be good. God is good and and does good - I want to learn his statutes!
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