It depends
Updated: May 4
Photo by Ernie A. Stephens on Unsplash
Silence - friend or foe?
It depends.
What do I mean by this?
It depends on whose voice we hear in the silence.
We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noises and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature-trees, flowers, grass-grow in silence.
Mother Teresa is one who thought long and hard about the sound of silence.
We need silence to be alone with God, to speak with him, to listen to him, to ponder his words in our hearts. We need to be alone with God in silence to be renewed and transformed. Silence gives us a new outlook on life. In it, we are filled with the energy of God himself that makes us do all things with joy.
The songwriter Paul Simon also thought long and hard about the role of silence in our lives.
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 shared And 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 Then the sign said,
"The words on the prophets
are written on the subway walls In tenement halls" And whispered in the sound of silence
There is nothing holy about silence. Nothing apart from God.
Silence - friend or foe?
It depends.
It depends on whose voice we hear speaking to us in the silence.
May the voice of God - the Word of the Lord - be the One we hear; whether it be in relaxed silence, or above the clatter and the clamor.
