I am acutely aware that this column will be published the day before Election Day. There are intense emotions swirling around November 3, 2020: an election that falls during a year of pandemic, wildfires, protests over systemic racism, and a country bitterly divided along partisan lines. Reflecting on the United States in 1967, Joan Didion wrote, “The center was not holding.” Reflecting on the United States in 2020, I ask, “Is there a center anymore, and can anybody find it?!?”

After the 2016 election, I wrote my opinion about the state of the nation. At the time, I felt an obligation – as someone who works with words – to make a statement, to add my response. If you’ve consumed any news or been on social media lately, it’s clear that now almost everybody feels this obligation. 

But I no longer do, so today I am writing about the often-underrated value of silence. 

By silence, I mean: no words, either spoken or written.

Wordlessness might seem like an odd thing for me to embrace. I am a writer. I live in a house that is full of noise and lively discussion all the time. We are a family that reads, and reads out loud, then reads some more, because individuals and cultures are formed by story. I believe wholeheartedly in the value of teaching my children written and spoken expression. If you give me money, I will buy books (or, occasionally, bookshelves.) I inhale and exhale words. 

But there can be too much of a good thing: too much chocolate, too much exercise, too much vacation. And at this point in time, there are too many words.

Click here to continue reading this week’s “Faith in Vermont” column in The Addison Independent.