Retreat from Clamor – Sunday, August 13, 1944
Not infrequently one sees the spectacle of a bewildered dog running loose in a crowd, harassed by numerous strange calls and whistles coming from all directions, in response to which the animal dodges here and there in utter confusion, responding first to one and then another, beckoned from every direction, and finding assurance in no direction. Comparisons are seldom apt in all details, but there are some points of likeness in such a plight and in the perplexity of people whose thoughts and loyalties and time and attention are being constantly bid for from many sources and in many confusing ways. Perhaps our generation has been exposed to more disturbing voices, to more frightening print, to more misleading information than any generation in history, because the facilities for doing such things are greater now than ever before.
It is a day of voices that urge us many ways at the same time, each claiming to be the way out—the way to peace and safety —the way home. There is discrepancy among the things we read, discrepancy among the things we hear—statement and counter-statement—making it difficult at times even for the wisest to discriminate. And amid all this confusion and contradiction a man must make his choices. But he must not, like the dog in the crowd, be diverted by all the calls that come from whatever source or direction. If he did, he would drop in his tracks, an exhausted, neurotic victim of the cross-currents of thought. If we don’t hear one call that rings true above the din of the crowd, we must not permit ourselves to strike out blindly and follow any voice that happens to be the loudest at the moment. To do so is to invite more confusion. The safer course is to withdraw at times where the maze of contradiction does not penetrate. Every man has need of times of silence, of solitude, and of prayerful thoughtfulness; and sometimes to shut out insistent, demanding, confusing voices is a requisite to reason and calm judgement. And even if we can’t get away to the quiet places of the earth, we can at least retreat within ourselves and let our own thoughts whisper to us, and let quiet judgment re-sharpen our sense of value and direction.
The Creator of heaven and earth, he who made man in his own image, did not leave us at the mercy of all the world’s confusion. That spirit “which giveth light to every man that cometh into the world” gives peace and comfort, direction and perspective, if a man will only take time to look within, shut out the clamor, and calmly think his own thoughts. It is a wise man who reserves the far-reaching decisions of life for a time of unhurried thoughtfulness. It is a wise man who does not permit himself to be stampeded in the bewilderment of clamoring voices that call in all directions.
Heard over Radio Station KSL and the nationwide Columbia Broadcasting System from the Tabernacle, Temple Square, Salt Lake City, Sunday, Aug. l3, 1944. Copyright – 1944.
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August 13, 1944
Broadcast Number 0,782