Blog 3738 – 02.04.2026

Peace and Quiet vs. Chaos and Noise

As a noisy little boy with and an equally noisy little brother I had a hard time understanding my dad’s aversion to noise. He ironically yelled a lot, “It is so noisy in here that I cannot hear myself think” or one of his other favorite shouts, “It’s so loud I cannot not hear it thunder.” My mom and dad argued almost constantly, or at least it seemed so to me and my brother. They made way more noise than we did and the chaos they created was not the fun kind that we did jumping on the roll-away bed till the one end folded under hitting the floor and sounding like that thunder that my dad wanted to hear so much, but did not appreciate on early Saturday and Sunday mornings when he maintained the irrational belief that two small boys should sleep late so he could. To paraphrase the old Trix’s cereal commercial, “Silly dad, tricks are for kids” My brother and I never had a trampoline, yet that roll-away bed was just as good as one and much noisier.

I have not been a little boy for a many many years. My own little boy will turn thirty six in a couple of months and has a two and a half year old little girl of his own. He was watching her while her mother worked a twelve hour shift last Saturday and I dropped by midday for a short visit. Like most small children my granddaughter loves chaos and noise. My son says the only time that they can pick up her toys and straighten up the house is while she is napping. And as soon as she is up she sets to play, putting things back the way she likes them. She shows her displeasure with short and very loud squeals, to which my son calmly replies, “You are all right, no more of that.” He lets her register her complaint as long as it is brief. A better and quieter noise control system than my dad’s was for sure.

I am thinking of a song that I learned as a young man, “Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me.” The chaos and noise around us is but of a reflection of our inner world. Any picking-up, any straightening-up, any calming of the storm, the chaos, must first come from gentle words spoken by our inner self, “Peace be still.” It worked for Jesus and the boys and it can for us too.

As I write this, I hear distant thunder and the sound of rain upon the roof. Dad would have loved that. He found his quiet place in the woods hunting or in a boat or on a bank fishing. More that the game or fish, it was the peace and quiet he craved in a world too full of chaos and noise.

Your friend and fellow traveler,

David James White