Noisemaking Reflects Spiritual Ills
Thumbing nostalgically through various articles written over the years about my peace-and-quiet advocacy, I came across the December 1, 1994 issue of Catholic New York. In a profile on me -- "Quest for Quiet: Bronx man wages fight against an injustice: noise pollution" -- the paper quoted me as saying, "When you hear a lot of noise in an environment, there's spiritual illness there." The article discussed in part my long-standing conviction, familiar to readers of this page, that quiet is an indispensable part of the spiritual life. "You can't have a relationship with God, unless you have quiet for prayer, meditation, reading Scripture," I said in the piece. It follows that I also believe, and just as passionately, that individuals determined to create ruckuses, or to allow those in their care to do so, while knowing full well that the disturbances interfere with or destroy neighbors' peace and privacy -- such individuals are unspiritual. Perhaps even diabolical. I use the term "diabolical" not for lack of a better word. I firmly believe that there are positive and negative forces at work all around us, and that they are attracted to and repelled by certain types of attitudes and sounds. (Fundamentally, attitudes are sounds.) Harmony in an environment -- peace and quiet, peaceful co-existence, mutual concern, individual and collective creativity -- draws positive forces and foments their settlement and proliferation. On the other hand, chaos -- needlessly loud music and conversation spilling from one apartment into another and the scornful mindset of noisemakers -- lures and hooks negative forces. These forces thrive off noisemakers' hostility, as well as noise victims' anxiety; they inevitably prey on hellraisers, inciting them to generate more of the bedlam that they (the negative forces) need to survive. Sound like primitive mumbo jumbo? Think again. An official prayer of the Catholic Church asks St. Michael the Archangel to "be our protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil" and "by the power of God thrust into hell Satan and all evil spirits who wander through the world for the ruin of souls." Another official Catholic prayer goes: "Visit, we beseech you, O Lord, this house and family, and drive far from it the snares of the enemy; let your holy angels dwell therein, who may keep us in peace ... " (Note that the second prayer associates God and His holy angels with tranquillity, not turmoil.) Rev. Michael Scanlon, a Catholic priest, writes in Deliverance From Evil Spirits: A Weapon for Spiritual Warfare: "We have found that evil spirits are able to influence people and events by influencing an environment. When spirits operate in this way they set a tone, create a mood, or directly control a few people in order to influence many others." Father Scanlon also states: "Nothing is too small or too large, too human or too spiritual to escape Satan's attention." Noise is an ideal vehicle for evil: the means for creating it are always right at our disposal (e.g., feet, hands, mouth, stereo, TV) and are usually out of control; the number of people it can affect, and the social, physical, and psychological damage it can effect, are extravagantly disproportionate to the means. Be that as it may, also ever within our reach are the means for us to engage and vanquish acoustic disorder and the malevolence feeding and being fortified by it: Love. Noisemakers must love their neighbor. Noise victims must not succumb to hatred of the noisemakers, but must love their enemies. Noisemakers must love themselves enough to want to live in a way that truly dignifies them. Noise victims must never despair and stop loving God, for Whom nothing is impossible or beyond control. Where there is love in heart, soul, and mind, there is interior quiet that reverberates as social and environmental tranquillity. This peace is poison for demons, nectar for good spirits, and balm for human beings. Ed. note: John Dallas is founder of the Bronx Campaign for Peace and Quiet. If you have a noise-related question or problem write to: Sound Advice, Norwood News, 75 E. 208th St., Bronx, NY 10467. Dallas will try to respond in a future column. Recent Sound Advice Columns include:
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