Ok. So no punches were thrown and it was a slow burn, but a recent day at the spa was less than perfect and reminded of Eugene Peterson’s observation that “All our ancestors agree that without silence and stillness, there is no spirituality.”
I love a spa. In order to fend of the dadbod and play with my kids, and also to defend my mental health, I run and bike and swim and move my body a lot and I have found if the wear and tear of it all starts to slow me down nothing rejuvenates quite like a few hours of hot tub-cold plunge-rest as recommended by those brilliant nordic folks from across the pond.
I am not alone in this. Despite their costs, every time we go to one of the three (three!) major spas in our area there is a lineup, a 20-40 minute line up just to get in. People go for lots of reasons, the physical wellness, the calm and quiet respite from the noise of daily living, or just to enjoy a little luxury.
Years ago I was getting a prescription for a massage from a doctor so my health insurance would pay for it. He asked, “do you have a job?” I said yes and he wrote the script. I asked what would happen if I didn’t have a job, “that might be even more stressful” he said. In Canada these days people are working hard, or hardly working and either way we love a spa day. We have many worries and cares from wars, the economy, identity politics, to the changing ground we seem to stand on, and it all adds up to a stress many carry in their shoulders or lower backs.
The spa, traditionally, is a quiet place, calm music, little to no talking, whispering at most, since everyone is looking for a breather from the the noise of life, the trains and busses, the tv, the headphones bleeding sound, the ads, the conflicts, the rush and hustle and bustle, we just need a little quiet, and we are ready to pay for it.
And therein lies the problem: many today still want that quiet, so many that the places become crowded and wherever there are crowds the quiet disappears. Many people are either incapable of being quiet or cannot imagine why anyone would ever tire of the noise. Or maybe it is more accurate to say of their noise. The monologues I heard people offering made me think a goodly portion of the populace just needs someone to listen to them, some of us are starved for attention and do not even notice that we are monopolizing the quiet spaces.
At the spa I quickly learn which groups to avoid, they are the ones with a talker. Rarely is it a conversation, it is a monologue that goes on for hours. I heard all about the work situation of one woman and so I worked my way to another part of the pool. I learned about the rigours of a mother woman’s commute, so I commuted to another hot tub. I heard of relational problems, housing issues (kitchen repairs taking too long and the like), I heard of shows that people hate but keep watching…all over the spa there were people talking and talking right beside the “whispering only” signs. It got so bad there were employees walking around with signs imploring people to shut up, the talkers either ignored them or were so interested in their own voices they didn’t even notice the growing resentment.
As a hetero white male there is zero chance I am going to be telling people stop talking, even if I have paid good money for a little quiet. Which made me so very grateful for the multiple women I heard asking others to to stop talking. The popular refrains (imagine there are a few “accepted” lines for this) “I am not sure if you know, but this is a quiet space” and the more aggressive “This is a SPA, Please!” Which is short and the talker always knows they are on the receiving end of that one.
What does it say about us that we cannot even be quiet in spaces made for quiet, spaces where people pay good money for a mostly quiet experience?
I have several ideas, but I am not totally sure. What I do know is that it bodes poorly for us.
The refusal to slow down and embrace silence, to hear our bodies and minds and even our souls in the quiet, is partly to blame for the ills around us, like the cars passing on the right or only ever rolling stopping, the rude employee, the even ruder customer, our inability to vote for anyone who might ask us for anything, or build anything like a library or recreation centre.
I worry about this being an issue we all face and that church folks are no better about. Maybe I am wrong. I wonder about the role of quiet in our faith. The importance of hearing from God, the importance of hearing our breath, the life of God in our lungs. How can we hear him calling out to us with love, grace, and yes, vocations or little opportunities to help, if we are never quiet? How can we know the state of our souls if we never get quiet enough to listen? For me at least, I cannot picture it.
Just as my body sometimes “needs” pampering, so does my mind and it is not found on a screen, or amidst the noise, but in the quiet.
If you are ready to embrace a little quiet there are many blogs and books about why and how you might go about it. My suggestion, don’t go to the spa for it, go where you can be alone, where you will not feel weird or embarrassed that you just want some quiet, and set a timer for what a few minutes less than you think is a reasonable amount of time. Then ignore everything around you until the timer ends. It’s that simple, it’s that free, it’s that hard.
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