Quiet Places

Perhaps being raised for the first ten years of my life on a small farm in upper South Carolina helped cause me to love quiet places.

I often feel a twinge of guilt for seeking solitude and quiet escapes. I like the title of a book published in 1874. That book is “Far from the Madding Crowd” by Thomas Hardy, an English novelist and poet.

  

“Madding” means “Acting in a frenzied manner —usually used in the phrase madding crowd to denote especially the crowded world of human activity and strife.”

I have, in error, sometimes referred to Hardy’s novel as “Far from the Maddening Crowd.” “Maddening” means “irritating, vexing, tending to infuriate.”

Getting away from folk can be an escape from duties, however. Much of human labor involves working with people. Laying down one’s life for others often involves taxing interaction with people.

Quiet places offer harbors in which to rest and recuperate. Harbors are places where battered ships – and depleted minds – can be restored and mended.

As a child, I loved the stillness of evenings on the farm. I recall lying in a grassy field near my family’s barn and looking at white clouds while I wondered about God and his creation. I heard only the sounds of nature – no sounds of motors, bustling shoppers or honking of horns.

Jesus knew the value of quiet places. Recorded in Mark 6:31 are these words he spoke to his disciples: “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.”

Shelia Walsh, a Christian singer and author, said, “We can’t always withdraw to quiet hillsides to pray, but Christ will meet with us in the quiet places of our hearts.”