In my coffee shop early this morning I heard once again this song…a long time favourite…
Hello darkness, my old friend
I’ve come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence
In the dark hours the truth of our being will not remain silent. The vision of who we are and our promise from birth to leave the world a better place for having being here, will not be dismissed. At 2:23AM seeds will be planted, and replanted, until we cannot silence their need to be made manifest in form in the daylight hours.
In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone
‘Neath the halo of a streetlamp
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence
And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never share
No one dare
Disturb the sound of silence
We are not alone in our quest. Ten thousand, ten million people, maybe more, find themselves awake at this hour, with this call to a greater expression of themselves and their work. With the call to leaving the world better for having been here. Yet most stay silent. Most do nothing. Most once again find themselves awake in the dark hours, the call unquenched, yet the pull of silence stronger. No one dares.
“Fools” said I, “You do not know
Silence like a cancer grow
Hear my words that I might teach you
Take my arms that I might reach you”
But my words like silent raindrops fell
And echoed in the wells of silence
The tragedy is that so many people hear the call and yet continue to deny it, resist it….and the silence breeds more silence.
And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made
And the sign flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming
And the sign said “The words of the prophets
Are written on subway walls
And tenement halls
And whispered in the sounds of silence”
© 1964 Words and Music by Paul Simon
The even greater tragedy is that so many of us have replaced the Gods of our true nature with the neon gods of consumerism, money begetting money without contributing any value at all, using the Earth as a fast goods store and garbage disposal, working our lives away so we can buy more stuff we don’t need and pay to keep up with the Jones’s while postponing our real call until we are retired…past our used by date or dead…
And yet the graffiti artists speak of this brokenness, they speak with frustration…the Banksy’s of the world speak for our own silence. The comedians…Jon Stewart’s, John Oliver’s, Stephen Colbert’s use satire and humour to say what we will not….
Our silence like a cancer grows…..
Perhaps as we close out 2014, your call to uncommon action will no longer be silenced? Perhaps it is time to cast aside the neon gods and find your own voice, your own God? To do that thing that is calling you?
