Silence

Silence is not easy to come by in this day of age. Cell phones, MP3 players, radios, they’re all constantly turned on. Students can’t even do homework anymore without music playing. Sometimes it seems that people forget what silence actually sounds like. What really can anyone get from silence? Is it all meaningless or can you learn more from it.

Words have lost their creative power. Their limitless multiplication has made us lose confidence in words and caused us to think, more often than not, “They are just words.” The result of this is that the main function of the word, which is communication, is no longer realized. The word no longer communicates, no longer fosters communion, no longer creates community, and therefore no longer gives life. Often it seems that we find ourselves entangled in such a complex network of discussion, debates, and arguments about God and “God-issues” that a simple conversation with God or a simple presence to God has become practically impossible.

Our verbal ability has sometimes become a poor substitute for a single-minded commitment to the Word who is life. Silence remains as indispensable today as it was in the past. The Word of God is born out of the eternal silence of God, and it is to this Word out of silence that we want to be witnesses. Silence is the mystery of the future world. Silence guards the fire within and silence teaches us to speak.

A more positive meaning of silence is that it protects the inner fire. Silence guards the inner heat of religious emotions. This inner heat is the life of the Holy Spirit within us. Thus, silence is the discipline by which the inner fire of God is tended and kept alive. Sometimes it seems that our many words are more an expression of our doubt than of our faith. It is as if we are not sure that God’s Spirit can touch the hearts of people: we have to help Him out and, with many words, convince others of His power.

Out of His eternal silence God spoke the Word, and through this Word created and re-created the world. Then in the fullness of time, God’s Word, through whom all had been created, became flesh and gave power to all who believe to become the children of God. In all this, the Word of God does not break the silence of God, but rather unfolds the immeasurable richness of His silence.

Words can only create communion and thus new life when they embody the silence from which they emerge. As soon as we begin to take hold of each other by our words, and use words to defend ourselves or offend others, the word no longer speaks of silence. But when the word calls forth the healing and restoring stillness of its own silence, few words are needed: much can be said without much being spoken.

Too often our words are superfluous, inauthentic, and shallow. It is a good discipline to wonder in each new situation if people wouldn’t be better served by our silence than by our words. But having acknowledged this, a more important message from the desert is that silence is above all a quality of the heart that can stay with us even in our conversation with others.