Crickets

Have you ever had the problem with someone not returning emails, texts, or phone calls? When people do that to Kathryn, she says “crickets.” It is a familiar trope in television meaning silence. Now we use other terms. Ghosting comes to mind. However, when we hear crickets at dusk we are not hearing silence. We are merely hearing less noise.

Crickets vs. Noise

Summer nights are filled with many sounds. Bird’s flapping their wings can be heard. Cicadas, June Bugs, Katydids, and of course crickets can be heard. We do not hear these sounds on baseball fields during evening games.  They cannot be heard in doors while watching television. Electronic music drowns them out too. We cannot listen for the noise. Some claim in noisy  rooms, “I cannot hear myself think.” I observe that many do not wish to hear their own thoughts. I often wonder if people fear their own thoughts? Unless they are psychotic, people should not fear their own voice in their heads. Noise has a mind-numbing effect. But it also connects communities.

When I sit beside another fan at a game, the two of us share in the noise. “Listen to that crowd,” commentators say. “This place is alive (or jumping).” For a short time, we feel we are part of something larger than self. And it is the self from whom we are hiding. The noise provides a hiding place.

Hiding From Crickets

Conscience is interestingly problematic. Some assert, we should always be guided by conscience. We speak of a guilty conscience. St. Paul claims his conscience is both clear and disconcertingly accusatory. The good conscience is spoken of as a goal in making ethical choices. “How can I, in good conscience, do that?” Saying this another way, “How can I look my child in the face if I did that?” Or more telling, “How can I look at myself in the mirror?”

Adam and Eve see themselves before they decide to hide. When they realize they are naked, they hide their nakedness from themselves and each other. And then, in the evening (when crickets would be singing), they hid themselves from God. They first though made clothes from leaves for covering. Was it from the forbidden tree? Were they covering themselves with their knowledge of good and bad? Adam says, “I was naked and afraid. So, I hid myself.” But he was not naked. Afraid, perhaps, but he had the leafy garment for his covering. Adam may not have been naked anymore. But he was exposed.

Keeping Silence

Silence is a difficult quality to maintain. Nature abhors a vacuum. Human nature no less so. We attempt to fill the quiet with new noises. Perhaps, we try to put the mind in neutral with a game or substance. Some people use silent times to climb into the head of an author. I might try turning off the brain with a game or change the internal conversation with movies or books. Oddly enough, though, the crickets still sing. They do not wait for any of us to come outside and listen. They make their music regardless.

The weather where I live has been fair with cool nights. I sit outside on the deck with a fire in the pit. By keeping silence I hear the sound of the fire and the songs of the insects. And then I listen to my own thoughts are they come unbidden to the mind. Could it be said if I hide from my neighbor I cannot love that person? It seems to me then to love our neighbors as ourselves we should stop hiding from ourselves too.

It is time to meet the person we are and have become. Only then, can we love ourselves and understand God’s love for us. It is time to appreciate the crickets.