30 Days of Hearing

Day 13: White noise

We had house guests staying with us the last two nights—a family with two small girls. I noticed that when they put the girls to bed, they turned on a white noise fan. When I came upstairs, I could hear the dull hum coming from their room.

As I’m sure you know, the whole purpose of white noise is to drown out extraneous sounds that might otherwise distract or awaken us from our sleep. As I listened to the constant, monotonous din emanating from the girls room, it sounded so loud to me that I wondered how they were able to fall asleep. Perhaps they’ve been conditioned.

I wonder if I've been conditioned. What do I turn on to drown out sounds that I want to block? Or, maybe it’s not that intentional. I unconsciously turn to different forms of white noise and the affect is that I miss what’s going on around me and how the Spirit is speaking to me.

My white noise is most often the constant thoughts drumming through my head. I am always “processing” something and “in the process,” I undoubtedly miss important voices, songs, calls and echoes of life.

Do you know what the source of your white noise is? Is it external things you turn to like television, radio, computer, or Face book? Or is it internal, like mine? A churning mind, thinking about what you have to get done next, or reliving the past. I don’t know about you, but I’m ready to turn the white noise fan off.