Silence
Gregg’s Reflection
Simon and Garfunkel made some incredible music together. Bridge Over Troubled Waters came as I was struggling to find myself in my college years. Another great hit was The Sound of Silence. While the music and words moved my soul, I now read it as a mystical text. It speaks of visions emerging from silence, a light that shines in the darkness, and words of prophets emerging where you would never expect it, among the least and last. Give a listen as you ponder the lyrics.
The Sound of Silence
Hello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
Still remains
Within the sound of silence In restless dreams I walked alone
Narrow streets of cobblestone
'Neath the halo of a street lamp
I turned my collar to the cold and damp
When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light
That split the night
And touched the sound of silence And in the naked light I saw
Ten thousand people, maybe more
People talking without speaking
People hearing without listening
People writing songs that voices never share
No one dared
Disturb the sound of silence"Fools" said I, "You do not know
Silence like a cancer grows
Hear my words that I might teach you
Take my arms that I might reach you"
But my words like silent raindrops fell
And echoed in the wells of silence And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made
And the sign flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming And the sign said, "The words of the prophets
Are written on the subway walls
And tenement halls
And whispered in the sounds of silence
What voice do you hear whisper in the sounds of silence? My most profound visions and voices have come to me in the silence of meditation. My life unfolded on God’s faint path as I saw those visions and heard the words of silence.
In 1 Kings, we hear of a gentle whisper, a still, small voice. I have found that God comes to me in a whisper, and silence is the only thing that allows hearing that whisper of God’s Voice. We can and do ignore that voice, and our lives are missing a great deal without that guiding voice. As we awaken to the gentle movements of Spirit, we realize those prompts have been there the whole time, we just couldn’t see or hear them.
Sitting before God in silence each day has been the most transformative spiritual practice I have found. Most of the deep change in my life has come from my time in silence. Richard Rohr talks about a tricycle as an analogy to our faith journey. “The front wheel is our experience of God, directing the path of our spiritual journey. Scripture and Tradition are the two back wheels carrying the weight that authenticates our experience of God.
Journaling Prompts
What is it like when you can push through all the chattering voices in your mind to find silence? Be Still are my words to let go of thoughts and usher in silence. What word or practice lets you find the silence of God? What places or spaces let you experience God?
Scripture
The Lord said, “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper, a still, small voice.
1 Kings 19:11-12
Teach me, and I will be silent.
Job 6:24
If you would only keep silent, that would be your wisdom.
Job 13:5
For God alone, my soul in silence sits.
Psalm 62:1
To you, God, silence is praise.
Psalm 65:1
I will sit in silence and hearken to what God speaks within me.
Psalm 84:9
Thus saith the Lord God, “In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and in trust shall be your strength.”
Isaiah 30:15
Incline your ear and come to me; listen, so that you may live.
Isaiah 55:3
Be silent before the Lord.
Zephaniah 1:7
The Lord is in his holy temple, let all the earth keep silent before him.
Habbakuk 2:20
In the middle of the night when all things were in a quiet silence, there was spoken to me a hidden word. It came like a thief in the night.
Wisdom 18:4-5
Learn to love and honor your interior silence.
I Thessalonians 4:11
RENOVARE Bible notes on Luke 1
Have you found your silent practice? Found the peace that comes when you enter the silent land? “In contemplation you learn to trust your Vital Center over all the passing snags and jerks of emotions and obsessive thinking. Once you are anchored in such a strong and loving soul, which is also the Indwelling Spirit, you are no longer pulled to and fro with every passing feeling. You have achieved a peace that nothing else can give you and that no one can take from you.”
RENOVARE Bible Notes on (John 14:27)
Ancient Writings
Let the name of Jesus (Yahweh) cling to your every breath and you will know the meaning of silence.
St. John Climacus, Ladder of Divine Ascent, Step 27, Classics of Western Spirituality, p. 270
Trinity! . . . lead us beyond all knowledge and light, to the highest summit of your mystic Word, where your simple, absolute, and changeless mysteries rest hidden in the luminous darkness of your silence.
Dionysius the Areopagite
Silence is never merely the cessation of words . . . Rather it is the pause that holds together-indeed, it makes sense of-all the words, both spoken and unspoken. Silence is the glue that connects our attitudes and our actions. Silence is the fullness, not emptiness; it is not absence, but the awareness of a presence.
John Chryssavgis, In the Heart of the Desert: The Spirituality of the Desert Fathers and Mothers[1]
True silence is a key to the immense and flaming heart of God. It is the beginning of a divine courtship that will end only in the immense, creative, fruitful, loving silence of final union with the Beloved. Yes, such silence is holy, a prayer beyond all prayers, leading to the final prayer of constant presence of God, to the heights of contemplation, when the soul, finally at peace, lives by the will of Him whom she loves totally, utterly and completely. Hospitality will be deep and real, for a silent heart is a loving heart, and a loving heart is a hospice to the world.
Celtic Daily Prayer, p. 798
Silence is threefold—first of the mouth, second of the mind, and third of reason.
Hugh of St. Victor, Bernard McGinn, Essential Writings of Christian Mystics, p. 338
There is nothing so much like God in all the universe as silence.
Meister Eckhart, Kathleen Singh, Grace in Dying, p. 143
God is not what you think or even what you believe because God is a word unspoken, a thought unthought, a belief unbelieved. So, if you wish to know this God, practice wonder, do what is good, and cultivate silence. The rest will follow.
Meister Eckhart, Meister Eckhart’s Book of the Heart
We must know that the very best and noblest attainment in this life is to be silent and let God work and speak within.
Meister Eckhart, Sermon 1, Sermons and Treatises, p. 6-7
Silence is the doorway to God’s house, for in silence and peace there God speaks in the soul.
Meister Eckhart, Matthew Fox, A way to God, p. 66
It enters another path, way above itself, where the spirit rests in God’s Spirit, in the secret silence of the divine essence.
Johannes Tauler, Sermons, p. 172
There is no better way of serving the Word than by silence and listening. Cherish this great silence within, nourish it frequently, so that it may become a habit, and by becoming a habit, a mighty possession.
Johannes Tauler, Sermons, p. 40
When you remain silent from the thinking and willing of self, the eternal hearing, seeing, and speaking will be revealed in you. Your own hearing, willing, and seeing hinder you so that you do not see and hear God.
Jakob Boehme
Deserts, silence, solitudes are not necessarily places but states of mind and heart. These deserts can be found in the midst of the city, and in the every day of our lives. We need only to look for them and realize our tremendous needs for them. . . . There are three kinds of silence: the first words, the second desires, the third thoughts.
The first is perfect, the second more perfect, and the third most perfect. In the first, virtue is acquired, in the second, quietness is attained, in the third, internal recollection is gained. By not speaking, not desiring, and not thinking, one arrives at true and perfect mystical silence, wherein God speaks with the soul, and, in the abyss of her own depth, teaches her the most perfect and exalted wisdom.
Miguel De Molinos, The Spiritual Guide, Bernard McGinn, Essential Writings of Christian Mystics, p.146
In his Confessions St. Augustine says that the discovery of the various levels of silence is what it means to “Enter into the joy of the Lord” (Mt. 25:21). St. John Climacus says, “The friend of silence comes close to God.” Meister Eckhart says, “The noblest attainment in this life is to be silent and let God work and speak within.” John of the Cross says, “The Father spoke one Word, which was His Son, and this Word He always speaks in eternal silence, and in silence must it be heard by the soul.” In the Cherubinic Wanderer Angelus Silesia says, “God far exceeds all words that we can here express. In silence He is heard, in silence worshipped best.
Martin Laird, Into the Silent Land
Modern Writings
I found I had less and less to say, until finally, I became silent, and began to listen. I discovered in the silence, the voice of God.
Soren Kierkegaard
Going into silence for the first time, people experience a certain about of interior noise. “That was a terrible experience. All my thoughts buzzed around me like flies. I thought about everything but God.” The master replied, “Oh that’s perfectly natural. It takes a long time for the person of today to close the wings of his intellect and open the door of his heart.”
Catherine de Hueck Doherty, Poustinia.
It takes two years to learn to speak and sixty to learn to keep quiet.
Ernest Hemingway
In silence the conscious thinking mind comes to a stop, and the invisible presence is given the opportunity to function. If we really believe that the Kingdom of God is within, we should be willing to leave the world until such time as we can reach, touch, and respond to the Father within.
Nana Veary, Matthew Fox, Christian Mystics, p. 355
The silence holds with its gloved hand the wild hawk of the mind.
R. S. Thomas
When I am liberated by silence, when I am no longer involved in the measurement of life, but in the living of it, I can discover a form of prayer in which there is effectively, no distraction. My whole life becomes a prayer. My whole silence is full of prayer. The world of silence in which I am immersed contributes to my prayer. Let me seek, then, the gift of silence...and solitude where everything I touch is turned into prayer: where the sky is my prayer, the birds are my prayer, the wind in the trees is my prayer, for God is all in all.
Thomas Merton
When I am most quiet and most myself, God‘s grace is clear, and then I see nothing else under the sun.
Thomas Merton, A Year with Thomas Merton, p. 54
The silence of the forest is my bride and the sweet dark warmth of the whole world is my love and out of the heart of that dark warmth comes the secret that is heard only in silence, but it is the root of all the secrets that are whispered by all the lovers in their beds all over the world.
Thomas Merton, Matthew Fox, A Way To God: Thomas Merton’s Creation Spirituality Journey, p. 60.
God’s first language is silence. Everything else is a poor translation. Without doing anything, silence does everything in us.
Thomas Keating
Silence is not the absence of sound, but the absence of self.
Anthony De Mello, One Minute Wisdom, p. 126
Silent meditation is one of the most direct ways downward into the ground and inward to the center. Silence, the heart of contemplation, is our portal into wisdom, it is the means by which we encounter God who is not other than us.
Bruno Barnhart, Second Simplicity, p. 36
“You think and talk too much, you must stop talking to yourself.” Don Juan, the Yaqui Indian, counseling Carlos Castaneda. We maintain our world by our inner talk, and we talk to ourselves until everything is as it should be, he explains. If we stopped telling ourselves that the world is such and so, it would cease to be so! He advised his student to listen to the world and so allow changes to take place.
Carlos Castaneda, A Separate Reality, p. 161
In the endless region of our inner landscape, bit by tiny bit, we are transformed into the likeness of Christ, as we are changed by waves and waves of Silent Mercy; so that gradually we come to speak, think, and love as Christ does: gently, without fuss, in a marvel of beauty.
Brother Elias Marechal, Tears of an Innocent God
The quieter you become, the more you can hear.
Ram Dass
Unfortunately, in seeing ourselves as we truly are, not all that we see is beautiful and attractive. This is undoubtedly part of the reason we flee silence. We do not want to be confronted with our hypocrisy, our phoniness. We see how false and fragile is the false self we project. We have to go through this painful experience to come to our true self. It is a harrowing journey, a death to self – the false self – and no one wants to die. But it is the only path to life, to freedom, to peace, to true love. And it begins with silence. We cannot give ourselves in love if we do not know and possess ourselves. This is the great value of silence. It is the pathway to all we truly want.
Basil Pennington, A Place Apart
It is in this silence that the Spirit of God can pray in us and continue his creative work in us. . . . Without silence the Spirit will die in us and the creative energy of our life will float away and leave us alone, cold, and tired. Without silence we will lose our center and become the victim of the many who constantly demand our attention.
Henri Nouwen, Nouwen Society Daily Devotion, 5/2/20
Dear God,
Speak gently in my silence. When the loud outer noises of my surroundings and the loud inner noises of my fears keep pulling me away from you, help me to trust that you are still there even when I am unable to hear you. Give me ears to listen to your small, soft voice saying: “Come to me, you who are overburdened, and I will give you rest . . .for I am gentle and humble of heart.” Let that loving voice be my guide.
Henri Nouwen, Nouwen Society Daily Devotion, 5/31/20
O Lord, I know now that it is in silence, in a quiet moment, in a forgotten corner that you will meet me, call me by name and speak to me a word of peace. It is in my stillest hour that you become the risen Lord to me.
Henri Nouwen, Nouwen Society Daily Devotion, 7/3/20
Holy Silence. At first silence might only frighten us. In silence we start hearing voices of darkness: our jealousy and anger, our resentment and desire for revenge, our lust and greed, and our pain over losses, abuses, and rejections. Our most spontaneous reaction is to run away from them and return to our entertainment.
But if we have the discipline to stay put and not let these dark voices intimidate us, they will gradually lose their strength and recede into the background, creating space for the softer, gentler voices of the light. These voices speak of peace, kindness, gentleness, goodness, joy, hope, forgiveness, and most of all, love.
They might at first seem small and insignificant, and we may have a hard time trusting them. However, they are very persistent and they will be stronger if we keep listening. They come from a very deep place and from very far. They have been speaking to us since before we were born, and they reveal to us that there is no darkness in the One who sent us into the world, only light. They are part of God’s voice calling us from all eternity: “My beloved child, my favorite one, my joy.”
Henri Nouwen, Nouwen Society Daily Devotion, 11/24/20
Without silence the Spirit will die in us and the creative energy of our life will float away and leave us alone, cold, and tired. Without silence we will lose our center and become the victim of the many who constantly demand our attention.
Henri Nouwen, Nouwen Society Daily Devotion, 5/2/23
In the sayings of the desert fathers we could distinguish three aspects of silence. First silence makes us pilgrims. Secondly, silence guards a fire within them. Thirdly, silence teaches us to speak. Timely silence, then, is precious, for it is nothing less than the mother of the wisest thoughts.
Henri Nouwen, The Way of the Heart, p. 42, 45
The practice of silence is, or course, inseparable from the discovery of one’s own depths. For when one descends into the depths of one’s spirit, there is a realization of the closeness of God, the Ground of one’s Being, the Depth in which our own soul stands.
Kenneth Leech, Soul Friends, p. 174. Christian Mystics, p. 186
For me, the two correctives of all spirituality are silence and service. If either of those is missing, it is not true, healthy spirituality for the long run. Without silence, we do not really experience our experiences. We may serve others and have many experiences, but without silence, nothing has the power to change us, to awaken us, to give us that joy “that the world cannot give," as Jesus says (see John 14:27).
And without clear acts of voluntary service (needing no payback of any sort, even "heaven"), a person's spiritual authenticity can and should be called into question. Divine Love needs to, and must, overflow! What You do for free is who you are. What you do beyond your occupation-how you pay your bills-is probably your true vocation and calling. Have you entered the Silent Land?
Richard Rohr, A Spring Within, P. 396
Our challenge is to go inward and meet, in silence and solitude, a power no human power can vanquish. This is divine love, love that empowers us to go beyond ourselves by imagining and creating a world worthy of love.
Richard Rohr
Silence is what allows the old world order to become unnecessary, and we really don’t know that until we are silent.
Richard Rohr, Jesus’ Alternative Plan, p. 41
Silence is the ability to trust that God is acting, teaching, and using us. Silence is the necessary space around things that allows them to develop and flourish without our pushing.
Richard Rohr, Both, and, p. 97
The ego gets what it wants with words. The soul finds what it needs in silence. The ego prefers full solar light-immediate answers, full clarity, absolute certitude, moral perfection and undeniable conclusions. The soul, however, prefers the subtle world of shadow, the lunar world that mixes darkness and light together.
Richard Rohr, A Spring Within, p. 398
Silence is not the absence of being; it is a kind of being itself. It is not something distant, obtuse, or obscure of which only ascetics and hermits are capable. Most likely we have already experienced deep silence, and now we must feed and free it and allow it to become light within us. We do not hear silence; rather, it is that by which we hear. We cannot capture silence; it must enthrall us.
Silence undergirds our very being as ceaseless, primary prayer. The soul does not use words. It surrounds words with space, and that is what I mean by silence. Silence is a kind of wholeness. It can absorb contraries, paradoxes, and contradictions. Maybe that is why we do not like silence. There is nothing to argue about in true inner silence, and the mind likes to argue. It gives us something to do. The ego loves something it can take sides on. Yet true interior silence does not allow you to take sides. That is one reason contemplation is so liberating and calming. There are no sides to take and only a wholeness to rest in—which frees us to act on behalf of love.
Richard Rohr CAC Morning Devotion, 1/8/20
Silence is not just that which happens around words and underneath images and events. It has a life of its own. It’s a phenomenon with an almost physical identity. It is a being in itself to which we can relate. Silence is somehow at the very foundation of all reality. It is that out of which all being comes and to which all things return.
Silence precedes, undergirds, and grounds everything. We cannot just think of it as an accident, or as something unnecessary. Unless we learn how to live there, go there, abide in this different phenomenon, the rest of things—words, events, relationships, identities—become rather superficial, without depth or context. They lose meaning, so we end up searching for more events and situations which must increasingly contain ever-higher stimulation, more excitement, and more color to add vital signs to our inherently bored and boring existence. Really, the simplest and most stripped-down things ironically have the power to give us the greatest happiness—if we respect them as such. Silence is the essence of simple and stripped down.
We need to experience silence as a living presence which is primordial and primal in itself, and then see all other things—now experienced deeply—inside of that container. Silence is not just an absence, but also a presence. Silence surrounds every “I know” event with a humble and patient “I don’t know.” It protects the autonomy and dignity of events, persons, animals, and all things.
We must find a way to return to this place, to live in this place, to abide in this place of inner silence. Outer silence means very little if there is not a deeper inner silence. Everything else appears much clearer when it appears or emerges out of a previous silence. When I use the word appear, I mean that silence takes on reality, substance, significance, or meaning. Without silence around a thing, which is a mystery, it can be difficult to find a meaning that lasts. It’s just another event in a sequence of ever-quicker events, which we call our lives.
Without silence, we do not really experience our experiences. We have many experiences, but they do not have the power to change us, to awaken us, to give us that joy or “peace that the world cannot give,” as Jesus says (John 14:27).
Richard Rohr, Silent Compassion: Finding God in Contemplation, p. 1–5
If we possess inner solitude we do not fear being alone, for we know we are not alone. Neither do we fear being with others for they do not control us.
Richard Foster, RENOVARE Life with God Bible
Jesus calls us from loneliness to solitude. Our fear of being alone drives us to noise and crowds. We keep up a constant stream of words even if they are inane. But loneliness or clatter are not our only alternatives. We can cultivate an inner solitude and silence that sets us free from loneliness and fear. Loneliness is inner emptiness. Solitude is inner fulfillment. It is the freedom to be alone in order to hear the divine Whisperer better. Without silence there is no solitude. It is always the act of listening. We must come to understand the transforming power of silence if we are to know solitude. Like Jesus, we must go away from people so that we can be fully present when we are with people.
Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline, p. 96-98, 108
Virtually every spiritual tradition that holds a vision of human transformation at its heart also claims that a practice of intentional silence is non-negotiable. You just have to do it. There is a universal affirmation that this form of spiritual practice is essential to spiritual awakening.
Cynthia Bourgeault, Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening, p. 9
There is the light of God in every person and, in sitting in silence and stillness, that light will be known to you.
Cynthia Bourgeault, Kathleen Singh, The Grace in Living, p. 104
Silence and contemplation is a way of learning how to, in a nanosecond, instantly surrender your being entirely into God and then walk into the noise and fray with steel nerves — or with a quaking heart, but with steel nerves. You just do it.
Cynthia Bourgeault
In prayer we sit alone and empty. As we sit, though nothing happens, there is a subtle parting of the curtain. As lightly as a falling blossom lands on the water, we touch down upon the kingdom of the heart. We enter the domain of spirit that stands within, yet beyond all that is logical. Above all, we sit with a growing unfolding desire, a waiting that is vast.
James Finley, Merton’s Palace of Nowhere, p. 71
By means of silence and solitude we journey into ourselves. We roam about into deeper, darker and more unknown realms of the human heart, wherein is found a door through which the Adam in us walked in giving birth to the false self.
James Finley, Merton’s Palace of Nowhere, p. 14-15
In fidelity to silent prayer there is unveiled the possibility of infinite growth in union with God.
James Finley, Merton’s Palace of Nowhere, p. 83
The deepest currents of awakening and discovery only begin to flow in us through the intentional, practiced silence of the contemplative way.
Brian McLaren
Our spiritual journey must lead through the desert or else our healing will be the product of our own will and wisdom. It is in the silence of the desert that we see clearly our attachments to the trinkets and baubles we cling to for our security and pleasure. The desert shatters the soul's arrogance and leaves the body and soul crying out in thirst and hunger. In the desert we trust God or die.
Dr. Dan Allender
All distractions have within them the silent depths we seek.
Martin Laird, Into the Silent Land, pg 75
As we journey toward the God who causes us to seek, may we discover our own grounding in silence and awake in God who has found us from all eternity.
Martin Laird
When human longing is consummated by the silence of God, we are fully created as self-forgetful vehicles of compassion. Life will continue to involve pain, struggle, and duress. But pain, decluttered of the biting and chewing chatter that says life should be other than it is at this very moment, is a very good practice. What changes is how we perceive, respond to, and live out our most challenging struggles and failures.
Martin Laird, Ocean of Light, p. 179-180
In silence I have discovered everything I hoped to discover in love. I have been fortunate enough to encounter both silence and love. To me they are one.
Martin Laird, Ocean of Light, p. 210
When we listen to God we encounter deep and restful silence. God gives us silence so He May speak to us at a level deeper than our conscious awareness. Resting in silence is a way to allow the Holy Spirit to touch our lives without us trying to control or manage the interaction. It’s very humbling, but also deeply nourishing.
Carl McColman Christian Mystics p225
If we do not know silence, it can be frightening or awkward. But once we befriend silence, we realize it is a true and deep ally.
Carl McColman
When we listen to God we encounter deep and restful silence. God gives us silence so He may speak to us at a level deeper than our conscious awareness. Resting in silence is a way to allow the Holy Spirit to touch our lives without us trying to control or manage the interaction. It’s very humbling, but also deeply nourishing.
Carl McColman, Christian Mystics, p. 225
We are too often uncomfortable in silence and this is typically because we are not comfortable in our own skin. When we become comfortable with silence then we have found true peace. When silence scares us or makes us nervous, then it is a sign that our hearts are divided and so, a monk is to cultivate silence. Silence in their environment, silence in their words, and eventually silence in their thoughts.
Justin Coutts, In Search of a New Eden, 10/9/22
Silence is the language of love:
Surrender its activity,
Emptiness its fulfillment.
Janet C. CAC Morning Devotion, 4/6/20
Deep in the soul, below pain, below all the distraction of life, is a silence vast and grand-an infinite ocean of calm, which nothing can disturb; nature's own exceeding peace, which “passes understanding”. That which we seek with passionate longing, here and there, upward and outward; we find it last within ourselves.
C.M.C quoted by R. M. Bucke, Helen Exley, And Wisdom Comes Quietly
The Kingdom of Heaven is waiting for release in the silence of your heart. Heaven comes every moment we dwell in the presence of God. Heaven comes when I know I am one with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Paul Ban
Holy Source of Silence,
beneath the clatter and din of the everyday
you offer your mysteries to our hearts.
You call us to pause,
to slow down and listen to the true longing
planted in each of us by you, a seed of holy desire.
Support us in letting go of the inner and outer noise.
Open wide in us a sacred cave for stillness
where we can attune to your presence.
Enliven us with the gift of your sweet music
and allow us to encounter your holy presence
flaming in each of our hearts.
Help us to catch a note of your song
in the wind or in the voice of another,
in times of sadness, and in the rush of our lives.
In a world so filled with distraction,
we listen for your whispers
which call us to another way of being.
and ask for the courage to respond to all
we discover in this tabernacle of silence.
Christine Valters Paintner
Silence must minister to us before we can minister to others.
Christian George, Sacred Travels