“Put your ear down close to your soul and listen hard.”

– Anne Sexton

Life gets noisy sometimes, and I’m not only talking about sounds.  We are bombarded daily with distractions of all sorts that are designed to draw our attention away from ourselves and toward something outside of us.  A couple of weeks ago, my sweetie and I found ourselves with the opportunity to go out for lunch together in the middle of a weekday.  When these times present themselves, we grab hold of them and take advantage of the unexpected chance to enjoy each other’s company.  He suggested that we go to a little inn that he sometimes frequents with friends from work — “you’ll like the food there,” he tells me.  We were escorted to a small room near the back of the eatery, and given a little table for two in the corner.  As we sat and waited for our food to arrive, I kept feeling disconnected somehow and I found myself struggling to have a conversation with the man I love.  Then it struck me.  I began to scan the room with my eyes and ears.  On one wall, there were three flat-screen TVs mounted, each of them playing a different sports match.  On the opposite wall hung another TV with a baseball game in progress.  The rest of that wall was covered with signs — some neon — that advertised the kinds of beer on tap at the bar.  To the right of this TV, a large mirror reflected the activity in the room.  Around the corner from the mirror was the door to the kitchen; and every time it opened, we could hear the clanking and conversations associated with food preparation.  Overhead, two large ceiling fans turned, creating a sort of strobe effect as they spun past the light fixtures connected to them.  The food was really good, but I don’t remember another time when I’ve felt so disconnected in the midst of so much stimulus.

Trying to be authentic in the midst of the sensory noise of the outside world can be a challenge.  Just as the delicious lunch fed my body while the atmosphere robbed us of our chance for intimacy, the distractions of being alive in the 21st century can draw us away from knowing who we are and from living our purpose for being alive.  We all have things that attract our attention.  ”Oh, look!  Shiny!” sweetie or I will croon when we see something we know will lure the other’s attention toward promises of fulfillment and happiness that last only as long as the breakable object that is here today and only a memory tomorrow.  We can choose, if we wish, to live life by using a series of shiny objects to make us feel connected to others, satisfied that we have acquired a prize, and always searching for something shinier to replace the last thing that has lost its luster.

We live in times where simplicity is a foreign concept.  There are many noisy distractions, many shiny things, that lead us into a false sense of becoming.  We must learn to see beyond the noise to a place deep within ourselves.  We must learn to lean inward and put our ears close to our souls and listen hard.  I guarantee that the light that we carry there will outshine the shiniest distraction the external world has to offer.  Perhaps when we do this, we will shine for one another and be beacons of Truth that are drawn together by what is authentic.