The Gift of Silence

Silence is a gift of God, and like all God's gifts it is both a blessing and a curse.

What a great blessing it is, to be offered the chance to be silent.  It doesn't come often.  Our world is full of constant noise.  The pull of advertisements trying to get our attention, of pundits trying to shout each other down, of politicians vying for our votes, of pop music battering down our senses with its relentless beat.  The push of our own vanity to get our voice in, to make ourselves heard, to offer up our witticisms and our jokes, our advice and our opinions.  What a great blessing it is to be offered a chance to escape this push, this pull, and simply sit in silence, neither being addressed by noise nor being impelled to make it.

Yet it is also extremely difficult to sit in silence.  True silence is very difficult to achieve.  First one is assailed by thoughts of all the other, more productive, more efficient things one could be doing.  I could be doing housework, or paying bills, or checking e-mail, or running an errand. . . Then one is confronted by sheer boredom.  Silence is boring.  It sits on you like a weight.  It cries out to be alleviated, an itch that demands to be scratched.

Then, when you have convinced yourself (truthfully) that you would most likely not be using your time more efficiently (think of all the hours wasted "surfing the internet," anxiously checking Facebook or e-mail, clicking on nonsense and watching inane YouTube videos) - then, when you have finally pushed past your boredom and entered a state where you can hear yourself think clearly, calmly, meditatively - then the real difficulty begins.  Because then you are confronted, face to face, with yourself.  With who you are, honestly.  All your failings, your flaws.  Your sinfulness.  All the times you have been ashamed or guilty.  All the times you have not been who you know you ought to be, who you want to be.  You see yourself as you are - a fretful, anxious, tiny little creature, frittering away purposelessly, meaninglessly, without goal or direction, a blind bat crashing into walls, a frantic bird slamming into the bars of its cages because it does not know how to free itself.

But even then you have not mastered silence.  Because silence insists we move even past this - past our own thoughts that reveal to us the smallness of our lives.  Silence insists we stop that onslaught of thought, and listen.  Listen to the voice of God, which can only speak in the silence.  Hear as He shows us the grandeur of His majesty, His greatness.  See the beauty of His plan for all creation and know - yes, our smallness in this plan, but also the wonder that we have a place in this plan, a place He has destined for us, and us alone, for all time.  Feel the humbled awe of knowing that God has deigned to speak to you - to you, wretched creature that you are! - and that His words are words of love and assurance.  Give your sins to Him and He will wash them clean.  Give your weakness to Him and He will make them strengths.  Give your purposelessness to Him, and He will draw it into His purposes.  Give your smallness to Him and He will make it great.

Only in silence can we come to recognize our smallness and God's greatness, and only in doing so can we become great - and achieve the greatness God has destined us to achieve.