hearing the silence

I was laying in bed today tossing and turning trying to sleep. I realized quite quickly that it wouldn't work out because my room was so hot. So I rolled out from under the covers and turned on the fan. Well, this is no ordinary fan--it has a rebel yell all to its own. I mean, when you turn it on, everything seems okay for a couple of seconds and then the noise starts. It sounds something like a pig giving birth (I don't really know what a pig giving birth sounds like, but I'm sure that this was pretty close). It would have been fine if it constantly made the same noise, but this fan runs laps. It makes the noise for a couple of seconds and then quiets down for a couple of seconds and then makes the noise and then doesn't make the noise and so on and on and on. Interesting enough, you can hear the fan picking up momentum because the noise and quiet increments will be closer together as the fan progresses. So I'm laying there all all that I can concentrate on is the atrocious noise.
Then I had an epiphany. What if I only listened to the silence? What if I only paid attention to the quiet in between the noise? I decided to give it a shot. I was really difficult. I realized that I am so used to listening to noise that when I wanted to concentrate on silence I didn't know how. It took me about 5 minutes before I heard just a blip of silence. And then it was like a flood of nothing. Silence, silence, silence! I could hear the silence! And I felt like I had finally accomplished something. Then, out of the blue, the fan decided to only make noise and like that the silence had vanished. So I got up again and turned the fan off and tossed and turned in my bed until I dozed off wishing for the room temperature to be slightly cooler.
But that's not the end of my story. While I was having my battle of the minds with the fan I realized a truth that was applicable to my everyday life. Sometimes I must stop listening to the noise and concentrate on listening to the silence. Just like I had to train my ear to hear the silence of the fan, in life, I also need to train my ear to hear the silence in between the noise. Everywhere around me is noise. People are yelling, arguing, stomping. Cars are driving, honking, wrecking. Children are crying, and whining, and laughing. But every person is also living a silent story. They are walking through life composing a story that will never be heard unless one can listen to the silence. They are crying for help--but their cries are lost in the noise.
I didn't know how to hear the silence, but once I did, the silence was overwhelmingly loud. There was so much going on in the silence. Without saying anything, people were asking questions and begging answers. And as I learn to listen to the silence, I learn to step past the noise and minister to the silence.