I stopped dead in my tracks and looked up at the sky. Something was different…besides the snow that had been slowly drifting down all afternoon and into the evening. I had headed out to lock up the roosting chickens for the night and then on to the woodpile to bring in enough logs to load up the woodstove to last the night. It’s a cold night so my mind was on how many logs I could carry and whether I would find the chicken water to be frozen. But something felt different so I stopped and paid attention.

It’s usually totally dark as I walk the same path every night, trusting the way to memory until my eyes adjust to the dark and I can see the porch light on my return to the house. I usually hear leaves rustling in the woods as nocturnal creatures scurry away at the sound of my approaching footsteps. This night there was not a star in the sky but it was bright out from the white snow covering the ground.

It was the complete and pure silence that had caught the attention of my wandering mind. As I listened I realized that I could hear the sound of the tiny pellets of snow hitting my knit cap! The snow was too fine to even see in the darkness but I could hear it. As I listened, an owl called out from a tree nearby and another answered from the deeper in the woods. The conversations went on for several minutes then the soft silence again. I looked around at the soft whiteness all around me. There were no angles anywhere to be seen and all was shades of gray. It was quiet. I was overwhelmed with a complete feeling of peace like I have never felt before.

It occurs to me that my life is filled with constant sounds. There’s the click of the keyboard, the hum of the computer, the whoosh of the furnace, the blather of the TV, the noises of machines and voices and even music. The sounds are so common and constant that a pure silence can grab our attention as much as a scream.

Peace be with you.