Retreat From Clamor

Not infrequently one sees the spectacle of a bewildered dog running loose in a crowd, harassed by calls and whistles coming from all directions, in response to which the animal dodges her and there in confusion, beckoned from every direction, and finding assurance in no direction. Comparisons are seldom apt in all details, but there are some points of comparison in the plight of a dog and in the perplexity of people whose thoughts and loyalties and time and attention are being constantly completed for from many sources and in many confusing ways. Our generation has been exposed to more voices, to more print, to more information and misinformation than any generation in history, because the facilities for doing such things are greater now than ever before. It is a day of voices that urge us many ways at the same time, each claiming to be the way out, the way to peace and safety—the way home. There is discrepancy among the things we read, discrepancy among the things we hear—statement and counter-statement—making it difficult at times to discriminate. And amid all this confusion and contradiction a man must make his choices. But he must not, like the dog in the crowd, be diverted by all the calls that come from whatever source. If he did, he would drop in his tracks, an exhausted victim of confusion. The safer course is to withdraw at times, to pause and to think things through. Every man has need of times of silence, of solitude, and of prayerful thoughtfulness; and sometimes to shut out insistent, demanding, confusing voices as a requisite to reason. Even if we can’t get away to the quiet places of the earth, we can at least retreat within ourselves and let our own thoughts whisper to us, and let quiet judgment re-sharpen our sense of value and direction. The Creator of heaven and earth did not leave us at the mercy of all the world’s confusion. That “…light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world” gives peace and comfort and perspective, if we will only take time to shut out the clamor, and calmly think our own thoughts. It is a wise man who reserves the far-reaching decisions of life for a time of unhurried thoughtfulness. It is a wise man who does not permit himself to be stampeded in the bewilderment of clamoring voices that call in different directions.