We all think our cities are very noisy, yet we don’t seem to do much to reduce noise. Social complexity and development make noise inevitable: heavy traffic, sirens, engines, horns, barking, shouting, and music pollute our ears. What can we do to limit noise?

There’s a lot to be said for personal education, caring for the environment, and respecting others. If people speak too loudly at home, their hearing develops; if there’s no hearing protection in a workshop or on a construction site, their hearing becomes damaged. Getting used to listening to loud television, radio, or music damages hearing, including that of neighbors. Noise pollution leads to raising one’s voice more and more, as happens in a bar or sports center. A nightclub is perhaps the most harmful venue for one’s hearing, mind, and personal balance.

Education and respect for others

Respect for others should be the first priority of care, because we don’t live alone in a neighborhood, in a residential area, at work, or in a home. Sounds that don’t bother a numb, insensitive person do bother others, in the family, at work, or in a meeting. So often, raising one’s voice is a sign of wanting to impose an argument. And yet, higher decibels don’t equate to more reason; quite the opposite.

It’s essential to educate hearing, both at home and at school, and even more importantly, to educate people from childhood. Even more so in adolescence, we must continue to teach respect for others. Living well means living well and making life easier for others: people who walk loudly, shout loudly, or handle furniture and doors are insensitive to the pain of others. Yes, pain because hearing suffers.

Noise is a distortion of inharmonious sounds that attacks the ear and also the nerves. Therefore, it is necessary to muffle loud sounds and protect ourselves from harsh sounds. Sound, on the other hand, has a certain harmony in timbre, tone, and volume, which produces pleasure, as occurs in a friendly conversation, a family gathering, or listening to a classical symphony. We are not made for noise, but for harmony.

Silence is born from within and facilitates thought, balance, and serenity, which will translate into work. That’s why so many organizations continue to promote reflection, calm, meditation, and openness to the unknown.

Inner silence

The Bible emphasizes silence as necessary for finding God and oneself, and for discovering one’s neighbor. For example, the prophet Isaiah says: “In silence and in hope is your hope” (Is 30:15). That is, in silence and hope lies your consistency as people who walk in excellence.

There is an empty silence that is unfavorable to the person, and a silence full of courage that engages the ear and the external senses, and especially the internal faculties such as memory, understanding, and will. Contemplating a snowy landscape promotes tranquility; the sounds of a forest are not disturbing; birdsong can be a delight to the ear.

Visiting museums can also facilitate inner richness, provided the voices of the insensitive don’t increase, and the guards enforce silence. Without it, one cannot contemplate a work of art, or one only runs to photograph it without capturing a deep impression. Reading in silence is one of the most valued simple pleasures; attending a classical music concert seems like a ritual, from the entrance, the carpets, the padded walls, the whispered conversations… until the lights go out, and the conductor imposes complete silence after having called for the attention of the orchestra conductors. And there is nothing more unpleasant than the nervous coughs or an inopportune cell phone ringing from an insensitive person.

Christian meditation

Christian meditation brings out the best in a person during the best time of day, when we enter the silence of the church to pray or adore Jesus Christ present in the Eucharist. However, it is not easy to enter into paths of prayer without seeking a few minutes of exterior and interior silence to center the mind and heart, seeking dialogue with God.

And it begins with listening, which begins with the eyes and the ears, aided by an act of God’s presence, or by opening the Gospel to situate oneself as a figure in the audience. The Book of Revelation says: “When the seventh seal was opened, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour” (Rev. 8:1).

This is how a saint of our time expressed it: “The life of prayer must also be based on a few moments each day, dedicated exclusively to dealing with God; moments of conversation without the noise of words, next to the Tabernacle whenever possible, to thank the Lord for waiting—just like that!—for twenty centuries. Mental prayer is that dialogue with God, heart-to-heart, in which the whole soul participates: intelligence and imagination, memory and will. A meditation that contributes to giving supernatural value to our poor human life, our ordinary daily life” [i].

When one has a distorted idea of religion, and Christianity in particular, it may seem that prayer is talking to oneself, not to God, as Kant thought, Feuerbach as a mirror of one’s own feelings, or Freud as a sublimation of the subconscious. These agnostic or atheistic positions do not believe that God is real or that prayer leads to improved relationships with others. On the contrary, prayer represents the greatest affirmation of the greatness of the human person who is capable of speaking to God.

The Catechism emphasizes silence as a reality of dialogue with God and the mystery of human life: “Contemplation is silence, this ‘symbol of the world to come’ or ‘silent love’. Words in contemplative prayer are not discourses, but branches that feed the fire of love. In this silence, unbearable for ‘external’ man, the Father makes known to us his incarnate Word, suffering, dead and risen, and the filial Spirit makes us sharers in the prayer of Jesus” [ii].

With faith and art, Saint John of the Cross spoke of sonorous solitude as a gift to those who cultivate creative silence, as opposed to those who are drunk with noise:

“My Beloved the mountains,
the lonely wooded valleys,
the strange islands,
the sonorous rivers,
the whistling of the loving airs,

the calm night
in pairs with the rising of the dawn,
the quiet music,
the sonorous solitude,
the dinner that recreates and enchants” [iii].

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[i]  St. Josemaría, Christ is Passing By, Rialp, no. 119.

[ii]  Catechism of the Catholic Church, n. 2717.

[iii]  Saint John of the Cross, Canticle. http://www.los-poetas.com/f/cruz1.htm#C%C3%81NTICO.