Dead Air
The covers of my bed were unusually heavy last night. Restlessness stirred my soul, cluttered my mind and left me longing for the hands on the clock to hit 6am so I could get up and start doing something. Silence, I’m starting to realize, is not something I’m comfortable with.
I decided, as I slipped out of bed and pulled the covers up in a half-baked attempt to make my side of the bed, that I would spend time with God first, rather than jumping on my computer to play with you guys.
It’s November 24th and as I read the date, on my “Streams in the Desert” daily reader, I felt a panic arise inside. The end of the year is coming too quickly. I felt the familiar urge to bolt and get busy. This is a typical response right before I mentally panic and do what I can to fill the dead air with activity.
As I looked under the headline that read “NOVEMBER 24TH” it said “Be Still And Know That I Am God”. It went on to read: Is there any note of music in all the chorus as mighty as the emphatic pause? Is there any word in all the Psalter more eloquent than that one word, Selah (pause)?
God has given me a pause. It’s a place to stop activity and simply wait. I’m not a good waiter. I spent 20 years in an industry that punishes you for what’s called “Dead Air”.(a pause) Now, here I sit in complete silence. People ask me “what’s next?” I’m silent. I have no noise to fill the void. They ask about my political future, still, nothing.
I laid there in bed this morning with my hands at my sides as if I were dead. I wanted to ask God something but had no words to say: Silence. I start to wonder “what’s wrong with me that I can’t even ask God for something”? Then I got up, fed the dogs, lit a candle and read those eight words that have changed my outlook for today.
“Be Still And Know That I Am God”.
In other words, Dead Air is okay.
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Comments ( 1 Comment )
Jon added these pithy words on Nov 24 08 at 9:57 pmMy experience is the opposite. I have fought the good fight (I believe) but no matter how ferocious the battle, I am obliged to return to the field with grace, dignity and courage–even when those characteristics do not seem available to me. I do the best I can to be “steady as she goes” but I most appreciate my wife and family for their ability to center me despite forces and events that seem determined to routinely knock me off center.
Government needs people like you who see things differently and who hopes for the future and who is able to lead others to see new possibilities.
Welcome to Rickdancer.com. I’m a guy who loves to write, enjoys communicating with people, gets a kick out of other people’s ideas and encourages everyone to get involved in the conversation. For 23 years I worked as a Television News Journalist in Eugene, Oregon. I recently lost a race for Oregon Secretary of State and am now at a point in my life where I’m waiting on God to see what’s next. I invite you to join me on this journey to freedom. You can simply read the blog, we have created a place for you to 
