The Sound of Crickets Chirping in the Backyard (standard:humor, 908 words)
Author: Godspenman	Added: Nov 13 2016	Views/Reads: 2004/1334	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
Noise has become a daily experience for many people today. From morning until night, we are surrounded by noise of all kinds. People have gotten accustomed to an atmosphere of noise. For my part, I am just a little bit tired of all the noise. What would l

Noise has become a daily experience for many people today. From morning
until night, we are surrounded by noise of all kinds. People have 
gotten accustomed to an atmosphere of noise. For my part, I am just a 
little bit tired of all the noise. What would life be like if there was 
silence? 

The Gracious Mistress of the Parsonage and I were relaxing on the back
porch after supper, drinking our coffee and enjoying the evening. 
Nothing quite compares to drinking coffee on the back porch after a 
hard day. Then my wife said something that startled me. 

“Do you hear that?” 

I listened and strained my ears but I could not hear anything. If my
wife says there is something to hear, then there is something to hear. 
I strained my ears as much as possible, but to no effect. 

“Don't you hear that?” She said once more. 

For the life of me, I did not hear anything and was beginning to think
she was trying to pull one over on me. She does that occasionally and 
catches me. She thinks it's rather funny, although I laugh along with 
her, I am not laughing on the inside. 

Finally, I said, “What are you talking about? I don't hear anything.” 

She was staring across the backyard as though she was looking at
something. 

“Don't you hear that silence?” 

Personally, I did not know you could hear silence, but I was not going
to argue with her at the time. I stared in the direction she was 
staring and still could not figure out what she was talking about. 

Then it came to me. 

Across our backyard several crickets were chirping. Normally I do not
hear those crickets, but I could hear them loud and clear from where I 
was setting. What they were singing I am not quite sure, but I enjoyed 
listening to them at the time. It sounded so serene and peaceful. 

Sometimes our life is so crowded with other things that we do not hear
some of the more quiet things. The noise around us crowds out some of 
the quietness in our life. 

“Okay,” I said with a grin, “I hear the silence now.” 

I suppose crickets chirp all the time, particularly the ones in our
backyard, but I do not always hear it. For the next hour, my wife and I 
quietly listened to those crickets chirping and we enjoyed every moment 
of it. 

“Isn't that silence,” my wife whispered, “truly refreshing?” 

I do not always agree with my wife, but this time I was in complete
harmony with her thoughts. It is refreshing to listen to silence that 
has absolutely no agenda but to quiet the mind. 

Out in our society, we have noise and activity and miss the good things
in life. I just wonder how many people miss the things in life that are 
truly refreshing because of all of the noise and activity around. 

It takes some time to get used to the silence, but my wife and I, as we
sipped our evening coffee and staring across the backyard, enjoyed the 
sounds of silence. 

To appreciate the silence is one of the great privileges of life. I must
confess I do not often get the chance to enjoy silence, especially 
hearing the chirping of the crickets in the backyard. 

As we were sitting there just enjoying the silence, I could not help but
think of one startling little question. Why in the world did God create 
crickets? Of what purpose do they have in this busy world of ours? 



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