Proverbs 4:18-27
18 The path of the righteous is like the first gleam of dawn,
shining ever brighter till the full light of day.19 But the way of the wicked is like deep darkness;
they do not know what makes them stumble.25 Let your eyes look straight ahead,
fix your gaze directly before you.26 Make level paths for your feet
and take only ways that are firm.27 Do not swerve to the right or the left;
keep your foot from evil.
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We may have no need to stumble, no reason to falter…but we do. Distractions are everywhere, false signals, crossroads, obscure trails we may think are marked pathways.. (my jungle adventure testifies to this!)
“There ain’t nothing but Noise in this world, nothing but the constant thoughts of men and things coming at you and at you and at you..”
I have been reading a fantastic trilogy Choas Walking by Patrick Ness. It revolves around young Todd Hewitt, who lives in a world infected by a germ called Noise, which allows all the men in his town to hear (and see) each others thoughts constantly. Todd will be a ‘man’ in a matter of weeks, but has been forced to run for his life after discovering a fatal secret. And so the adventure ensues…
I wouldn’t want to ruin the plot as it’s the kind of book you find hard to put down, but this whole notion of a world full of Noise really intrigued me. Ridiculous? Perhaps. Untrue? Maybe not…
There is no doubt that on a daily basis we are bombarded by advertising, overwhelmed by media coverage and within earshot of radio, jingles, and constant chatter, not to mention our own music selections we happily plug in as we go about our day. Silence is something we often try to escape to, or escape from, but is rarely part of our ordinary experience.
“Cuz you can lie in the Noise, even when everyone knows what yer thinking, you can bury stuff under other stuff, you can hide it in plain sight, you just don’t think it clearly or you convince yerself that the opposite of what yer hiding is true and then who’s going to be able to pick out from the flood what’s real water and what’s not going to get you wet?”
What I find tragic is what does get through. More than anything else, its the ‘negative’ Noise that seeps in the most. I’m not only talking of the gossip that whispers its scandals in magazines, or the glee we take to air (and watch) orchestrated bust-ups or sure signs of humiliation. The saddening thing is that the negative is what sticks, whether that be querying your body image, a prod at your salary or a poke at your love-life. Underlying all this is the suggestion that ‘you are not good enough’ (so buy this, believe this, become this..), and this is where the problem lies. If we let negative Noise cling on, it can become negative thoughts, and thoughts, especially our own, can be more destructive than you would think.
The Chaos Walking trilogy follows both Todd Hewitt and his nemesis Major Prentis, the picture of discipline and cold-hearted indifference. He has in fact trained himself to such an extent that he can control his own thoughts, even use his skills as a weapon against others. By ‘hitting’ someone using his Noise he can fill their heads with thoughts so forceful they literally disable his opponent. Negative Noise like this brought Todd down on his knees screaming in pain as the phrase ‘Yer nothing yer nothing yer nothing..‘ rings on and on in his head.
I’m sure there are many of us who have had experiences of our own negativity, rendering us ‘useless’, immobile and downtrodden, whether that be self esteem, guilt or loss. When negative noise crowds your head, when you are overwhelmed with the impact of life itself, you can feel much more than ‘downcast’.
“when you’re fighting the current you forget how to live”
Sometimes, in that place, the struggle is just about as much as you can bare… Our times of darkness are often inevitable and heart wrenching, but they need not be interminable. Our staggers and stumbles will not simply terminate by bringing in a bit of faith.
There can, though, be reason to look up again from the depths, look out from our sorrows, and test our feet gingerly on unsteady ground. In this time of advent we can prepare, reflect, and hope to rejoice in the coming of one who God sent to lift us up from our dark places, help us to walk a better path, and guide us and steady us as we try our best to “fix our gaze” on him.
“I think maybe everybody falls…I think maybe we all do. And I don’t think that’s the asking.
I think the asking is whether we get back up again.”
-(Todd), The knife of never letting go, Patrick Ness-
Dutchblend 