As I was looking through news headlines today I saw this article:
NEW YORK — Someone will probably get fired over what’s going on right now, but in all honesty, they shouldn’t. Whoever is responsible has managed to do in one half-inning, what even $1.5 billion couldn’t do. Make the new Yankee Stadium, with it’s nod to the past, actually feel like a game from the past.
How? Well, the speakers/music/PA system blew out just at the end of the bottom of the sixth inning. That’s made the last two innings arguably the most pleasurable to grace the Bronx since the 1950s or 60s.
The only thing you can hear right now at Yankee Stadium? Nothing. Just the hustle-bustle of the fans in the seats. The sound of the ball being hit and the pop of it going into the glove. It’s really quite something to experience. A very nice nod back to the golden days of baseball before every unoccupied second was filled with booming club music or the dreaded "We can’t hear you!" meter.
Even the famous (or infamous, depending on your viewpoint) "Cotton Eye Joey" was forced to become "Silent Eye Joey."
I have to say, I’ve been going to baseball games since I was a kid and I can’t ever remember a game being devoid of brain-thumping sounds.
Kind of makes you feel like you could actually be at the old Yankee Stadium.
I wish I would have been there. (Okay, so that probably has a lot to do with my love of baseball and the fact that the Cubs were playing.) I can’t imagine what a MLB game would be like without music filling any space where something ‘exciting’ wasn’t happening.
Of course, there would still be some music, but it would come from the fans. You can’t have a baseball game without starting with the National Anthem. After all, we all know that the last two words of it are "Play Ball!" I’m sure that the majority of Baseball Stadiums wouldn’t be able to go through the 7th-inning stretch without singing "Take Me Out to the Ball Game." (Root, root, root for the Cubbies!) And it just wouldn’t be baseball in Milwaukee without a rendition of ‘Roll out the Barrel.’
At some point that ceased to be enough. We are very audio oriented people. We get very uncomfortable with ‘too much’ silence. Students walk from class to class with headphones on. People will have their iTunes blaring while on their computer. I edit out ‘extended’ silence when I go through HT-Radio each week. The majority of people are extremely bored by silent movies. Star Wars would probably be a pretty lame movie without John Williams Score. The rubrics for silence in the Liturgy are often ignored. And if not, Pastor better not have them last too long or people will look around wondering what’s wrong.
Does silence have any meaning? Or is it always just awkward?
(Yes, you can answer the questions in the cool comment box below!) 🙂
Monk of Milwaukee 
For the record: I think silence does have meaning. I’m just having trouble explaining what that meaning is and it making any sense. Perhaps that is a topic for another post.
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Silence or pauses during a sermon allows you to reflect and digest on what is being preached lest you miss an important part along the way.
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Silence has all kinds of meanings.
In general, I think silence allows a person to stop hearing and listen. Hearing is passive… listening is active. If there’s always sound going on, it becomes meaningless after a while. Part of the background. Unimportant. How about that… part of the meaning in silence is that it gives things meaning : ) or, perhaps more accurately, brings out the meaning in things.
I won’t say lots more. This is a very broad topic, and I don’t wanna get carried away : P
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I think that is certainly part of it. But it doesn’t really touch on things like a moment of silence after a tragedy.
And I think that silence and peace can also be tied together much of the time.
Just the fact that its always going on doesn’t make something meaningless or unimportant. But, perhaps makes us pay less attention to it.
(Yay comments!)
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Alrighty then, let’s see.
In terms of moments of silence after a tragedy, I’ve always thought they were meant so that we may reflect on the tragedy and recognize those involved. I suppose in this case you could say that silence is a mark of respect and a recognition of importance(i.e. honoring veterans/fallen soldiers, showing respect for a public official who has died, or remembering and recognizing the loss of the victims of some tragedy). Getting everyone to be quite for a moment for something outside of themselves certainly shows that something to be important.
As for silence and peace being tied together, I very much agree.
So then, silence can reinduce action when things become harmfully passive and can bring peace when activity overwhelms.
I’m beginning to love silence : )
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Yeah, the music is blasting and shooting t-shirts with a cannon. I remember going to ball games at Yankee Stadium and you actually could have a conversation with the person next to you. I miss those days. Great Post.
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