By Jim Nichols

Silence is a word that demands an opposite. We each understand what is meant by silence, but we would probably define it as the absence of something. We speak about silence “being broken” by noise, by a racket, by music, by applause, by clamor. Some of the methods of breaking the silence are gentler while others are harsh, perhaps startling and frightening. But the real definition of silence is difficult. It is as if we cannot define silence, but we know silence when we hear it (or do not).

Silence is most obvious when noise is periodic, even unexpected. While serving as a hospital chaplain in a large city, I was in the hospital for a 24-hour shift. The “sleep room” for chaplains (as it was euphemistically called) was on the top floor of the hospital. This seventh-floor room was right down the hallway from the sleep room for the physicians who were on the same shift. It was just a regular hospital room in an isolated, little-used area and, every night, a different chaplain occupied it when the hospital began to get quiet during the night. The windows of the room faced north towards the downtown area near this inner-city hospital.

It was winter and a substantial snow was falling. I had just returned to the room, and the lights of the city with the snow made a magnificent view. It was silent outside and now, silent in the hospital. Hospitals are always in action, but in the early morning hours the action tends to be limited to the urgent. For workers such as chaplains, that action identifies itself in the pager vibrating and ringing. This is not a particularly loud sound, but in the context of a snowy, city-lit view from a tall building, the sound was jarring. This particular hospital has a trauma center with a notably high 30 percent “penetration wound” clientele. That is, 30 percent of the people coming to the trauma center enter because of bullet or knife wounds. When the “silence is broken” by the pager in the middle of the night, this percentage is a good bet to be correct. 

With the silence broken, great action begins. Just as the meaning of silence depends on the presence of noise, rest and sleep depend on the anticipation of urgent action. Medical workers spring into their responsibilities, whether those responsibilities are performing CPR on a patient or tearing off the clothes of someone who just arrived from an automobile accident or a fight.

Soon, the event ends and relative silence returns. The snow is still falling. The city lights reflect off the building glass, and the few cars below go about their tasks. Family and friends spending the night in the waiting room adjacent to the intensive care unit might be able to dose off in their concern and mourning.

In the medium-sized town where I currently live, the local newspaper asked its readers to identify the most silent place in town. Specifically, the paper wanted to know where one would go in town to find the closest to silence. On one side of town there is an interstate highway with constant traffic noise. A busy railway track separates the north from the south downtown. A traffic loop circles allowing motorists to avoid driving through congested city streets. There is a large air force base with both bomber and cargo planes and a regional airport with planes departing and arriving routinely. Despite multiple suggestions, the newspaper reported that, within the city limits, no place really qualified as silent. Granted, by choosing a time of night when many are sleeping one could approach silence, but still, the interstate and trains rumble along occasionally.

How would you have responded to the newspaper’s request? Do you have any silence in your everyday life? Is this a problem? Do you ever sense (as do I) that life is full of noises? Furthermore, that many of those noises are unnecessary and unhelpful?

Would it be a reasonable goal for us to seek a few silent places and times for our lives?

Jim Nichols is a retired Abilene Christian University biology professor and current hospital chaplain