29/09/2025
RANDOM 397.
I travelled up country to attend the funeral of a friend's father, along with some other friends. We were relatively young at this time. Maybe in our early thirties. It was an adventure for us.
The first thing I noticed about up country was the freshness of the air. We could smell virgin nature. The other thing I noticed was the clear sky. We could see stars, see our Milky Way galaxy. There was no smog, and no light pollution. It was all so peaceful. May explain why people in the village live longer than city dwellers. They don't have environmental stress and hazards. No noise pollution either. If you want to hear noise pollution, come to Lagos! There are always sirens wailing. Every big man has a security convoy with siren. To maintain sanity, one needs to get away from the madness once every while.
I got up very early the next morning, before anyone was up, and went exploring the verdant beauty of nature. I wanted to meditate. I heard birds tweeting, heard leaves rustling, heard twigs snapping, crunched... It was so serene I could hear myself think.
I thought that was the quietest experience one could have until I heard about the anechoic chamber at Orfield Laboratories in Minneapolis. It's so quiet you can hear your blink, hear your internal bodily sounds - your heart beating, lungs bellowing, blood flowing... The irony is that as much as we crave quiet, humans can't endure perfect silence. Staying in the chamber can cause mental illness and lead to dizziness, anxiety, hallucinations, and disorientation. Silence can drive you mad!
King Saul knows a thing or two about that. When God blocked him on all social media platforms and phone networks, he pretty much lost it. And that's what sin does. Sin cuts us off from fellowship with God.
Not that God will leave us as he left Saul. We're covered by grace. But sinning creates the anechoic effect. That's because we are technologically configured to seek God and commune with his Spirit. It's that anechoic feeling conscience seeks to prevent. It produces ambient noise so we don't lose sanity when we sin.
If you're feeling disoriented spiritually, you now know why.
