The Pause Between Songs

Why down time matters for ears, brains, and souls

“Put the music back on!”

My youngest son yells at me from the back, indignant in his car seat. I have not turned off the music, have not even touched the dial as we drive. But the mere lull between tracks is enough to send him into a rage these days. I try to explain that there are pauses between songs—on the radio, on CDs, on my phone—but he does not care.

“I want music!” he hollers as soon as a song drifts to silence. The standard two seconds of quiet are too much for him to bear. If you know toddlers, you know I have explained this phenomenon close to one hundred times, and it matters not. We revisit this reality every time a song he loves ends. I don’t know what else to do besides wait for this phase to pass, for another annoyance to grab the attention of his inquisitive brain and not let go. For now, I coach him through the audacity of un-endless music every afternoon.

Meanwhile his older brothers complain that the house looks empty without Christmas and when can we put Valentine decorations up and why aren’t there more holidays in January? I went to Target this week for a sweater and found what I needed on the clearance rack because swimsuits and summer clothes are already on display. It is -10 degrees in Minnesota.

We cannot bear silence. What do we do with empty space? A month without holidays? Anywhere without our phone?

But language is made up of silence as much as sounds. The space between words, the margins on the page. Pauses in a poem are part of the art, deliberate and pregnant with purpose. So, too, Sabbath. Given as a gift by God, commanded by the Creator—yet now we shrug that we really have to get work done on Sunday and why not run those errands, too, since the kids have soccer anyway? We’ve run roughshod over every healthy, holy rhythm, and we wonder why we're existentially exhausted. Which we are—collectively, culturally—to our bones. 

(We, I say deliberately; I do none of this the way I want either.) 

Which brings me to now. And our strange American insistence on swinging from feast to feast while wondering why we get tangled in the vines of our own too-much-ness. 

Already the once-fresh new year is stained with suffering, as we knew it would be. Mass shootings and police brutality and wars dragging on without end in sight. Too much, we protest, shaking our heads, reaching for noise-canceling headphones. But we need more than a break from bad news or a numbing scroll on social media or the thin substitute of self-care.

We need deep rest. Long stillness. More quiet. 

(Did your shoulders sink at that line? Did it give you a long exhale?)

Right now is Ordinary Time again, ho hum and drab, just a handful of weeks before Ash Wednesday arrives to carry us toward Easter glories. This sliver between Epiphany and Lent—between stardust and ashes—arrives like the two second pause between tracks: barely enough time to catch our breath and consider what’s coming next. If we fill up even this, if we push away silence for fear of what we might hear, if we keep doing/buying/working/wanting more to fill any empty void, what do we expect to find but exhaustion?

In this down time between high feasts, we might want to take a big pause and ask what to make of the gift of space, silence, and stillness. Do we want to hurry it along? Are we already thinking of Lent, prepping for Easter, planning our summer? What we might need most is to stop and look around and remind ourselves how stunningly beautiful and how achingly hard it is to be human right now. The fact that God baked Sabbath into creation should tell us something, anything, everything. When we lose it, we become like the toddler in the backseat, desperate for the next distraction, kicking in frustration at our lack of control.

Science tells us our brains are overloaded, our ears overstimulated. The spiritual extension is a half-step away: our souls are stressed out, too. But before we panic and start scrolling for some life hack, a time management trick, or the latest distraction to numb ourselves from the harder work, we might remember the answer is ancient. Rest.

Good liturgy, I learned in grad school, must make space for silence. Even the powerfully proclaimed Scripture, the soaring music, the mightiest prayers, and the most brilliant sermon must eventually fall silent in the presence of God. Otherwise how can we take in what we have heard, or digest what we have received, or marvel at mysteries beyond telling if every blessed second is filled to brimming? Even worship must be done in Sabbath time.

Stop what you’re doing. Slow down. Share what you’ve been given with God who gave it. 

Watch what it does for you, too. Sabbath makes us more human, because it reorients us back into a world where we are not God: not in control, not in demand, not the one upon whom all things rest. Maybe you start with two seconds between songs. Maybe you slow the podcast speed back down to 1x, the pace of a human voice. Maybe you say no to something on Sunday. Maybe you stop overriding your body’s tiredness and take a rest instead of pouring more caffeine. Maybe you put your phone back the next time you’re bored, and choose to look at the people and places around you instead. Maybe you give thanks for a rare empty space in your calendar.

Whatever small Sabbath practice you start, it will likely grow if you let it. Because your body, your mind, and your soul were literally made to slow down, to stop doing, and to seek the source from which you came. I have written every word here to myself, she admits by the end. For the past month I have been going to bed as early as a preschooler, and my God, the holy difference it is making to give my body and soul what they need. This is only the beginning—of this practice, of this year, of returning my wandering heart to God for the thousandth round—but I know ordinary time is the place to start.

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If you enjoyed the recorded version above (including the funniest misspeak ever, a fumble too good to take out), let me know. I’d love to hear if this podcast option is an offering to continue.

If you want to read more about the spirituality of Ordinary Time, check out the e-book I wrote—The Extraordinary Ordinary Time—with more essays, prayers, and reflections on this favorite liturgical season.