The Trip (part 3)--Silence is Golden

The following is part three of the on-going saga from my trip to Maryland.

Silence. It's something we're not very good with in the United States. Don't believe me? Watch what happens when the conversation stops in a group. Someone will immediately jump in with another topic. It's just part of the conversational ritual we've learned.

Now, I'm not a typical American. Really. If you've read much of my blog you already know that I'm a little weird. After all I study communication for a living. What you probably don't know about me is that I really like silence, or at least I thought I did. Unfortunately, in a house full of teens, silence is a rarity.

Interestingly, one of the components of my trip/conference included an extended period of silence. While this was frustrating for some, I found it quite refreshing and embraced it with vigor. After all it would afforded me some real "quiet time" with the LORD.

All this was fine and dandy until my roommate and I returned from the conference to our hotel room. We tried to open the door but our keys (those credit card things) would not work. We took turns. Each trying our key several different ways. Slow, fast, upside down. You name it. Unfortunately, it was a "no go."

Using a series of hand signals that would have confused even the best of charades players, my roommate headed to the front desk to get new keys. And I was left to guard our stuff which we had deposited by our door. Other hotels guests came by, looked, asked me questions, offered suggestions and all I could do was shrug or give the thumbs up sign. Oh my!! I had no idea just how much I relied on my voice.

How my roommate dealt with the front desk, I'll never know. But she did manage to come back with two functional keys. When we finally made it into our room we collapsed in a mixture of exhaustion and laughter, the likes of which has never been seen or heard since. Thank goodness there were no candid cameras to record us. I can only imagine how we looked.

I am now back to my noisy world. And although I miss the silence, I've also learned a valuable lesson. Silence may be golden, but a good word every now and again is priceless.