For me, the desert, with its spectacular sunrises and sunsets, is a very quiet place. This particular visit, my husband and I were the sole campers in the area of Palm Canyon where we chose to set up. The stillness was broken only by the sound of a covey of quail warning of the approach of a pair of coyotes and the scurrying footfalls of two kangaroo mice and their brood of quadruplets.

I tend not to write about religious themes, but in the quiet, God, Yahweh, the Creator is very close. I understand why the Israelites needed to wander in the desert for 40 years, why Jesus sought solace there and why Native Americans consider it a sacred place.  

Some people are frightened by the idea of absolute quiet. We live in a world of noise – of cell phones ringing, TVs and radios blaring, cars honking, heavy machinery toiling to build roads and highways, dogs barking, children crying, people arguing.

Mo Rocca recently did a piece about noise (http://tinyurl.com/njsueh). He noted how the world keeps getting noisier; how we’re simply drowning in the din and ruckus of everyday life; and how the noise drowns out our power to listen to ourselves, simply making it impossible for us to hear ourselves think above the din.

Are you looking for a bit of quiet and solitude? Perhaps you can’t go to the desert today. But you can find everyday moments of peace and stillness. Take a walk in a nearby park or beach without your iPod; silence all your tech gadgets for an hour or two, watch the sun come up…or go down, work in the garden, sit in a comfortable chair and read a book.

How do you feel about being quiet? Where do you go?

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