People are loud. We make things with speakers so we can “turn up” the volume. We use large banging and crunching machines to “clear the land” and “make way for the new” by demolishing the old. We have sayings like “the squeaky wheel gets the grease,” which speak to the power and influence we associate with being the loudest.

Our cities have a constant hum underneath the isolated collection of noise makers: horns, sirens, bells, whistles, crashes, and slammings and bangings of all kinds. Our buildings rise tall and give echo to all sounds, blending them into tsunamis of sound washing through our streets, burying our quiet, and leaving no stillness undisturbed. 

Our homes fill with a competing cacophony each morning. The alarm jolts us from our sleep. The coffee machine beeps to call us to get moving. Our computers and phones beep and flash messages demanding immediate responses. Our televisions click on to tell us of all the bad that has happened, is happening, and could happen. Our cars and trucks roar to life in our driveways. People are loud, and the things we make are even louder.

The first snowfall is a welcome reminder of the power of quiet. Snow never makes a sound. Flakes fall silently, fluttering their way to the ground unannounced and without ceremony. Snow lands softly and quietly deepens. It blankets the ground, pulling a hush over the world. Even the visual blanketing of white somehow quiets the earth. The air is crisp and clear. Like ice freezing the ever shifting waters of a pond to reflect the still color of a blue winter sky, falling snow pulls noise from the air and buries it ever-deeper with each hour – leaving space for the still sound of nothing.

The first snow invites us all to slow down, to listen carefully, and to imagine a world so quiet and filled with peace that you could hear a snowflake fall.

Peace,

Chris