Silence

In an appearance last Sunday on CBS "Face the Nation," Vice President Dick Cheney dismissed suggestions that the Bush White House was in need of a shake-up. "I don't think we can pay any attention to that kind of thing," Cheney said. "The president has got a job to do. ... He ignores the background noise that's out there in the polls that are taken on a daily basis."

I'll leave the discussion about politics, responsibility to the thoughts of the electorate and the question of accountability for the government's less than stellar performance to other bloggers who do it far better than I. What caught my attention instead in Cheney's remarks was the comment about ignoring "the background noise."

Everywhere I turn I am bombarded with noise. After accepting the 5:10 am alarm's disruption of the last remnants of a restful sleep, I surrender again to the call to turn over another 12 hours of life to the job that provides a roof over my head and food on the table. The morning commute is a wrestling match whereupon the latest audiobook mystery, whats going on in the world and precious silence vie for supremacy. Once at work, I really cherish the quiet stillness of that first hour in my office before the prisoners begin to assemble for their interview and classification.

I have a colleague who inevitably perches herself in my office each morning and revs her mouth to rob me of my silence. With a voice sounding like the cross between a manic Mickey Mouse and the fast talking guy on the old Fed Ex commercial, she eats up the entire hour in noisy chatter barely giving herself time to breathe or leaving me the opportunity to voice anything more than a couple of words here and there. I must carefully weigh the desire to offer my word or two knowing that to do so is likely to send her on another verbal expedition. If you recall the old Gilda Radner character Rosanne Rosanadana on Saturday Night Live then you know my colleague Deb and her daily assault on my quiet time.

Silence is so absolutely amazing. It is like the finest symphony. Attentively listen to the silence and you hear instrumentation, movements and voices that are not noise at all and together form the most beautiful composition possible - life itself! Oh if we would only consider for a moment everytime we would open our mouths if what we are about to say really adds to the beauty that is silence.