Once two friends were walking down the sidewalk on a busy street during rush hour. There were all sorts of noise in the city; car horns honking, feet shuffling, people talking! And amid all the noise, one of the friends turned to the other and said, “I hear a cricket.”
“No way,” her friend responded. “How could you hear a cricket with all of this noise? You must be imagining it. Besides, I’ve never seen a cricket in the city.”
“No really, I do hear a cricket. I’ll show you.” She stopped for a moment, then led her friend across the street to a big cement planter with a tree in it. Pushing back the leaves she found a little brown cricket.
“That’s amazing!” said her friend, “You must have a super-human hearing. What’s your secret?”
“No, my hearing is just the same as yours. There’s no secret,” The first woman replied. “Watch, I’ll show you.” She reached into her pocket, pulled out some loose change, and threw it on the sidewalk. Amid all of the noise of the city, everyone within thirty feet turned their head to see where the sound of the money was coming from.
“See,” she said. “It’s all a matter of what you are listening for.”
Silence is not the absence of noise but the refined tuning of the soul to the sounds and movements that usually go unnoticed.
~ Elisa Davy Pearmain
