Tonight after I got home from work and ate dinner, I threw in the movie “In the Bedroom”, and began to watch the beginning of the film. It’s been some time since I even thought about that movie, but someone interesting on Twitter mentioned it was among their favorites, and I was reminded I had it, so I broke it out. I got through about 30 minutes of it and decided to quit watching it. I knew that it was a dark film, and because of that I had liked it in the past. But tonight it just seemed a little too much.

It’s a movie about a young man who loves an older woman, who herself is trying to escape the clutches of an abusive ex-husband, who, in the throes of her new romance, is trying to force his way back into her life- to the crescendo that the promising young man is assaulted and murdered by her ex trying to get back in her house. The woman has lost her new and treasured love, the boy’s parents have lost a mature and talented and promising son, and the specter of grief invades all of their lives. The film takes a hazy descent into darkness and bitterness and brokenness as each character is soaked in the gall of loss- each striving in the privacy of their own life trying to make sense and find substantiation for the loss of their loved one.

I turned off the television and the film because I knew I couldn’t wade very far into that journey without being thrown into the tides of despondency myself.

And I also turned off the television because, somehow, the film told me I needed to. It told me I needed to not try and wander off in someone else’s story tonight, but instead, to listen to my own.

I am reminded tonight that I like noise. As my good friend Chris knows, it is not hard for me to get lost with him talking about sports, revisiting observed plays and scouring team stats and speculating about conference and post season schedules. Sports offer an endless supply of interesting and unique story lines that, when pored over, make for fascinating drama with compelling characters. It’s easy to get caught up following teams and players because, through them, we get to add a little color and conquest into our lives. Through the actions and accomplishments of admired athletes, I can live vicariously in their lives and not have to pay as much to making something of my own.

But tonight, I am reminded that sometimes things like movies and sports, which should bring us entertainment and even encouragement, can become for us- like a six-pack of beer, or impulsive shopping, or chronic evenings at the office- a source of escape, a source of distraction, a source of “something else” into which we pour our thoughts and feelings- so that we cannot hear ourselves. So that we cannot hear Him calling to us. So that we will not have to face ourselves, and our issues, and a call to change.

I am reminded tonight that I like noise. I like visual noise, throttling through page after page on the internet, collecting random bits of data and article links and new bites that I will never remember, that I will never assimilate. I like aural noise, because it suspends my need to stop and listen to my own mind, and its calls that I make some hard decisions. I like psychic noise- flurries of images and thoughts that rush through my mind, keeping me from making clear and strong decisions.

I am reminded tonight that I like noise because I realize when the noise goes down and I am left alone in silence and stillness, I have to make some sense of my solitude and singleness, and of the broken and barren path behind me.

And sometimes silence and solitude have a violent volume all their own.

Still, I realize I need to learn to prefer the cacophony of coping than the escape of entertainment. Life is found more in the former than in the latter.