On Silence
When you listen, what do you hear? I hear the ceiling fan, a car, my loud, snoring dog. What if you listened again, but more deeply? More subtle noises emerge - a clock ticking, the dishwasher. But keep listening, and you’ll hear the silence itself.
If you look closely, you’ll find that silence is not the absence of noise. There is a character to it. A deep abiding spaciousness. It’s oddly tangible. It’s steady–floating, but ever-changing.
Silence seems to expand beyond our ceilings, beyond our walls. Sometimes it’s heavy, suffocating, even scary - it can feel like an infinite abyss. Other times it is lightness and joy itself. At certain moments, it feels like silence is the glue that’s keeping this whole world together.
We aren’t afraid to wield silence as a weapon. John Cassian talks about those who “erect a barrier of sullen silence around them and distill the bitter poison of their hearts”. Sometimes it’s a strategy for transaction. I recall the pregnant pause at the end of a sales call. It might be a conversation tactic, to prepare your next remark and make the person next to you thoroughly impressed. Of course, anyone in a long relationship knows the “silent treatment”. On Wall Street, silence means the same thing as ‘no’.
Silence is my garden - not always tended the way I’d like it to be, but fruitful. One can arouse a love of silence. It offers great value to the spirit.
It allows us to be free from our own loquacity, and to experience the unexpected resonance of the rests between the notes. It is where you hear the full voice of God. It is where you’ll hear the first notes of pain, of love, of suffering, of compassion.
To sit in silence is let go of a self that needs to be in control. The quiet allows us to worship unutterable truths - a sense of divinity that defies any attempt at language. In silence is humility - it’s nearly impossible to imagine someone who is both silent and braggadocious. Silence, says Thomas Merton, “is what America’s miles of mountains and forests are really for”.
Those who enter long periods of silence do not tend to come out with a negative affect - they are joyful at the end. There’s a quality of equality too. Silence is the same to everyone, no matter what they bring to the table.
Right action arises from silence. Wisdom and clarity emerges. So does awe. And love. It teaches us to love each other for who we are, not what we say. It teaches us how to be fully human.