The Deep Water Series Part 2: Lessons from a Missouri Sandbox

I grew up on a farm in rural Missouri during a time when quiet wasn’t something you had to seek out—it was simply the norm.

We had a wall telephone, but it almost never rang. There was no television flickering in the corner, no radio providing a constant soundtrack to our chores. When my older sister headed off to grade school, even my playmate was gone. I was left with a sandbox, a few simple toys, and my imagination.

In those hours spent in the sand, I learned the language of stillness. There was very little noise or confusion to clutter my mind. I didn’t know it then, but I was cultivating an "interior life"—a place inside where thoughts could breathe and a sense of peace could take root.

Today, the world is vastly different. The "noise" is no longer just outside of us; it’s in our pockets, on our desks, and constantly demanding our attention. We have traded the silence of the sandbox for the clatter of the digital age.

But the need for that inner sanctuary remains the same.

The interior life isn't about escaping our modern responsibilities, but about returning to that "farm stillness" within ourselves. It is about realizing that we don't need the telephone to ring or the screen to glow to be "connected." The most important connection happens in the quiet, where the Master Potter can speak to the clay without having to shout over the world’s confusion.

At 77, I find myself trying to re-learn what that boy in the sandbox already knew: If we don't protect that inner quiet, we lose the ability to hear the very Voice that gives our lives meaning.