During a great conversation with a friend, we spoke of our need for silence, and wanting friends and companions who could not only identify with that need, but who practiced silence for themselves as well. "I think most people think of silence as emptiness," my friend said. I agree.
I wonder if I would appreciate silence as much as I do if I had not been required to live in silence for so many years. After all, we are social creatures, and communication is the norm.
And yet, when communicating with God, silence is more eloquent than formal prayers. Silence says, you have something worth while to say, and I am listening. Silence gives God a chance to speak to my soul. Silence offers me a venue to learn to listen and discern that quiet, still voice.
I would even dare say, silence lets me step into that other world, the world of the spirit, in some small way. By quieting my mind and heart, I somehow open the door, or maybe it's a window, or maybe it's just a small crack, into the world of the spirit, where I can begin to understand things in a different way. If you have ever gone to a silent retreat, or learned how to spend time in meditation, you will know what I mean.
Perhaps that is the message from psalm 46:10, which says, Be still and know that I am God. Silence holds a treasure, one I cannot see until I let silence penetrate into my very being. And then I will find, not emptiness, but Presence.
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