silence

Long ago, Thomas Carlyle coined the phrase, “Silence is Golden.” And it was Lord Byron who wrote, “There is pleasure in the pathless woods.” Recently, I took a walk in the pathless woods of southern Michigan and noticed the silence. The breeze was slight, and the birds must have been taking their midafternoon nap, for the only sound that could be heard was the ever-so-slight rustling of thousands of leaves and the cracking of my feet upon the ground. The trees reached tall and the rays of sunlight filtered down to the green covered forest floor. I stood in the center of this place for what seemed to be hours, drinking in the silence, basking in the sheer peace of creation’s splendor. For a few minutes one Sunday, all was right with the world and silence was truly golden.