The Noise
(Originally Spoken Devotio-Poetry at United Theological Seminary)
The Noise
©Elizabeth Glass Turner
UTS Retreat, Fall 2024
October is a little early for the Grinch Who Stole Christmas - but you can feel it, can't you?
The Grinch-like impulse to clap your hands over your ears at all the noise, noise, noise, noise, NOISE -
You are marketed at,
called to urgent action,
the target of a frantic cacophony of sound:
voices;
"talking heads";
messaging;
sound-bites;
sirens;
appeals;
urgency;
alarms;
reminders;
notifications, news, noise.
All the noise, noise, noise, noise, NOISE.
If I just try to sit and listen to the birdsong, the traffic driving by
drowns out the chirps I'm trying to learn to identify.
Whether you hear the sound waves or feel them as vibration climbing up your feet, or sense the tremors (sending ripples through a water cup like the approaching thud of a T-Rex on the prowl) -
the roar and reverberation can sink bone-deep.
Jesus knew the toxic seep
of literal noise: crowds, shouting, dismantled roofs, creaking boats, animals, children.
Jesus knew the toxic seep
of figurative noise: hype, adrenaline, rapid response, speculation, attention.
He took disciples physically away, removed them from noise pollution, to get away with Him. That's the outside noise -
but -
is it as insidious as the noise we bring with us?
Within us?
The noise within:
the voices of naysayers and saints, critics and coaches, trauma and testimony.
When God came to walk in the Garden, the noise must've been so loud:
the noise of humans, hiding;
the noise of hearts racing;
the noise of splintered existence.
Maybe the bite of an apple isn't a crunch; maybe the bite of an apple is the crack of a bell, ringing; maybe thirst for one-upmanship
or splintered
trust in God's goodness
sounded like an apple bite, cracking like a bell.
We humans rang the bell of our own liberty and cracked it down the center.
When God came to walk in the Garden, the noise must've been so loud:
The ring, ring, clank of a clanging, broken bell.
Maybe our discomfort with silence comes from those moments
when meanness or resentment or horror or shame or ego or despair – when any of this unholy peal of bells clangs through our spirits, taking us back to the time when the comfortable companionship of shared garden silence lost its joy,
sliding into churning, discordant dread.
Martha came to Jesus: overheated, overstimulated, dysregulated, frustrated,
trying to welcome and serve and work and hustle her way from the tolling tolling tolling bell of inadequacy.
She was all noise.
She couldn't outrun the clanging of her own shortcomings.
In all the alarms going off in the kitchen and in her head,
Jesus must've remembered
the same frantic dread
of early humans hoisted on their own freedom.
Jesus was not being cruel - was not comparing sisters, as some inevitably feel they must.
But when Martha's noise demanded help from her sister, Jesus' eyes must have poured over with tears, because Mary -
Mary?
Mary was responding to a different bell.
She heard something
louder,
clearer,
purer
than her own noise.
When Mary of Bethany landed with the other disciples, learning from her rabbi, learning with them from her teacher, she was
running
back
to
Eden.
She heard the
ring
ring
ringing song of Creation when Jesus walked into the room –
Jesus, the Laughing
Liberator, who mends the bells
that are broken and
rings with all his might.
Her feet were pointed toward the walk with Creator God in the cool of the evening that those early humans thirsted for.
Jesus, laughing with what Chesterton called the most terrifying thing about God –
God's mirth –
God's delighted joy -
Jesus was ringing a different bell, and Mary was not letting anything stand in her way:
not the external noise of norms that demanded she constrain herself to the kitchen,
not the internal noise that clangs in all humans who fall short of the glorious pealing bell of the heart of God,
the bell of the heart of God that patiently rings, summoning humans
to walk in peaceful silence
once again.
With the focused sprint of a She'Carri,
Mary
of Bethany
launched herself toward the ringing sound of freedom, the booming laughter of God that dances across galaxies
and sends hearts into the dangerous orbit of hope.
Her noise was not the loudest thing in the room.
The noise bombarding her was not the loudest thing in the room.
Her sister's voice was not the loudest thing in the room.
James and John, sons of thunder were not the loudest thing in the room.
The loudest thing in the room was the pool of perfect Eden-silence around Jesus,
Word Made Flesh,
who beamed around at the humans beside him,
the humans who were tired of hiding from him,
the humans who longed to walk next to the Word again.
Jesus must've wanted to shout, "I've missed this!"
That pool of peaceful silence continues
to ring out
like ripples,
like the repeated peal of bells
inviting all who hear them to draw near.
More resonant than Westminster Abbey's cascade of celebratory bells,
more true than the cracked and broken toll of our own self-curving sabotage,
the heart of God rings out clear -
drawing all who are overwhelmed by noise.
The noise of a
splintered,
tilted,
bruised,
hung-over
world
cannot drown out the peaceful, ringing heart of God -
God, who can be so quiet
He let Joseph and Mary finally sleep through the whole night.
The noise of our own
petty, twisted pride,
our own mean selfishness,
our own dishonesty,
our own horror, trauma or numbness -
the noise of all the ways we shatter -
cannot drown out the peaceful, ringing heart of God: God, who tells us, "blessed are those who mourn, for they, like Mary of Bethany, will be comforted."
What noise is bombarding you?
Demands, critics, needs, worries, urgency?
What noise have you brought with you?
What noise is shattering you from the inside-out like a bell unable to contain its own promise?
Are you busy telling the Word Made Flesh how others aren't helping you like they're supposed to?
or
Will you slip into the rippling silence pooling from the feet of Jesus long enough to hear the heart of God ringing out in the contented safety of a garden walk?
Because underneath the silence,
underneath the stillness,
there is a tremor
a vibration
and when you finally feel safe again in silence with God,
you know what the tremor under the stillness sounds like.
It is the terrifying, joyful laughter of God who mends every bell that is broken and sets them free to ring as they were always meant to.
Only in the silence can we trade our noise;
only out of the silence can we ring along with the laughing, liberating heart of God.
What will you do with your noise?
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