Quiet Speaks Loudly by Ashley Whittemore

by Rachael Adams | Mar 10, 2022 | The Love Offering Guest Blog Series

Sometimes she came over, sat on the couch, and did not say much of anything. It made me nervous in the beginning. I tried to fill the silence with sound and my hands felt obligated to be busy moving, doing, working.

Yet there she sat, still. Quiet.

I asked questions and her responses were often simple and to the point. She rarely got worked up or overly animated about much of anything, despite the outward chaos of the life going on around her.

“It feels like she wants to ask me for something and she’s just nervous,” I told my husband one evening as we cleaned up from dinner.

“I think she just enjoys being with you,” he replied, leaving me perplexed. I had never considered such a thing.

Rosa came into our lives soon after we arrived in this tiny jungle town. One evening she showed up to introduce herself and her daughter and we knew immediately that she was special. We spent lots of time together after that, eating churrasco at her house and meeting her family. Something was different about her and more and more I wanted to spend time with her and learn from her as I navigated this new culture.

But this? This was very foreign to me at the time, this idea of just sitting, just being. My western mentality said that if there was quiet, it required noise. If there was need, it demanded meeting it. If there was presence, it necessitated interaction. To simply sit and be with someone was not only something I had never really considered, it was also very uncomfortable.

Since that time, I have learned a lot about what it means to live in community and one of the essential elements it turns out is actually specifically that: quiet.

Even now, on our most recent trip to the Amazon after an extended wait due to the obvious conditions of our world today, much of our time was quieter than my busy mind would prefer. There was an urgency in my heart to take full advantage of the fleeting moments we had together. After all, if there is one thing these last two years have taught us (and let’s be honest, there is a lot more than just one thing!) it’s that we need to seize the day because who knows what tomorrow holds.

So as we sat together on a bench in front of her house, I forced myself not to fill the quiet with words just for the sake of sound. I quieted my heart to listen. I listened for the sounds of the street and the distant birds. I listened to the kids laughing and the dishes clinking together as they were washed and put away.

Then the next day as we rested on the beach by the river, I let the air between us rest easy, too. I didn’t strive for extra words or stories to tell like my instinct told me to do. Instead, I took in the boats going by, the peke-pekes drifting in the current. I listened to the kids splashing and watched my boy child learn to cast a net for the first time. I let there be emptiness.

I let there be quiet.

I have to say, it was hard. I am out of practice.

When we lived overseas full-time it became much more natural for me. When Rosa showed up, I would carry on with laundry and we would chat and share, but those big gaps in between were like anchors, keeping us present and close.

After returning to my passport country, I reluctantly admit this is no longer a rhythm I maintain. I want to say I could if I wanted to, but can I? Can this concept carry over into a culture so caught up in the going and doing, the hustle and bustle?

When #hustle is the banner over our daily activities, how do we make room for quiet?

How do we leave room in the lingering silences when there doesn’t seem to be silence left to linger?

In some ways, maybe this habit of quietness ruined me a bit. I may struggle to implement silence, I also don’t always know how to fill up those gaps with words. I am rusty when it comes to small talk and calm presence. Since I often don’t have words to fill those gaps, I instead find a way out.

A lull in the conversation triggers my exit strategy.

A casual chat runs dry and I start grasping for pleasantries to escape any discomfort.

Or I reach for my phone, mindless scrolling to the rescue.

Can I have the courage to be a Rosa in those conditions? I wonder sometimes what it would look like to not assume that a break in conversation was an immediate signal that time is up, the hosts are ready to bid farewell, that the invitation is redacted.

I imagine it is possible for me to be the change I want to see. If conversations feel uncomfortably superficial, it may very well be that they are lacking the anchors of silence that connect us outside of words and noise.

In fact, God calls a “gentle and quiet spirit” an “imperishable quality of great worth in God’s sight” in 1 Peter 3.4.

I can be the one to normalize quietness. I can be the calming presence that doesn’t depend upon entertainment or recreation to tie us together. I can in fact lean into the stillness of being wholly present where I am and not having a dependence on noise at all.

It’s a tall order in a culture of shouting and hustle. It’s so rowdy out there that noise-canceling headsets are all the rave. But another way to cancel out noise is to refuse to participate in contributing to it to begin with. We really can be quiet and find fulfillment in relationships. In fact, I’d say it’s of the utmost importance to do just that.

Quiet presence may be exactly what the world needs.

About Ashley:

Ashley is a recovering people pleaser, former ex-pat, and writer. Married to her high school sweetheart, together they have three children whom she homeschools while trying to drink her coffee fast enough since they don’t own a microwave.