How Much Silence Is Too Much?

Not so long ago, I had to escape, withdraw, retreat from the "noise" of society. A dark, cold, rainy morning before daybreak I was on bended knees, begging, pleading, crying out to God, Creator, Spirit (and possibly any entity that would hear my prayers) to caste out the "noise" in my head. On bended knees, with tears flowing, and my nose dripping, I begged release from the ongoing, seemingly never ending anxiety of the noise in my head, the worry about everything that had developed over a period of 10 years. Every morning, every day, all day the "noise" of anxiety bound my heart, mind and soul to agony. No relief, that dark, cold, rainy morning before daybreak, I found myself on my knees pleading, begging, crying for silence, for solitude, for peace of mind. Then in an instance, a voice, and a gush, a guidance urged me to "Go home" to my ancestral home; to the little "nowhere" town of my mother's house. Interestingly, the last place on earth I would want to go to find silence, my mother 's house (and the ancestral community) was too often a place of stress, distress and unnamed anxiety for me - yet nonetheless - I realize it is "home" a place to disengage from the ongoing noise of my regular life. So I grabbed a backpack and hurriedly hiked to the bus stop in darkness of the early morning to purchase a ticket with money that I worried I didn't have to spend for the 9 hour bus ride "home". I told no one. I did not forewarn my mother (or other family members) that I would be "coming home" that dark, cold, rainy morning. The bus ride was safe and mercifully quiet (considering the community of people on a long-distance bus are usually anxious, worried, and running just like I was that day). And once there, back "home" - to my surprise, for the first time ever (very much an adult, having made the trip many, many, many times over the years), my visit to my mother's house, as well as the visit with my mother was one of solitude, solace and silence. It was a time of "genuine and deep communication" and I emerged several days later, recharged. The "noise" in my head lessened, indeed silenced. I returned to my place of residence understanding, perhaps as Merton did, that I can not completely disengage from the "noise of society" yet from time to time there is the necessity to go to the "The Abbey" for quiet contemplation; for recharging, the solace, the solitude, the silence. peace.

That's quite a thing that you took that nine hour bus ride back home -- I'm impressed. I think we grow in the back and forth, the going home and the coming back to now.