The gift of silence

I am often finding things in the books I read that I want to share. Usually these are 'aha!' things and they hit something deep in me that seem worth pondering. So, the book this time is called: Heart of Flesh by Joan Chittister (Erdmans Publishing Co. and Novalis, 1998). I very much like her writing and this book, though not new, says a lot of things about women and the Catholic church especially. But the aha thing is a bit different. 

Sr Joan says: Talk without thought is useless. What we may need most is interior quiet in a culture of boom boxes, agitation, and perpetual motion. We need space to think in culture bombarded by sound, most of it vacuous, much of it extraneous, a great deal of it self-centered. We have a culture forever geared to mending the way we talk when it may be silence that is lacking. Then she goes on to say something that I feel is so worth thinking about:

Silence is not an empty thing. Silence is full of what we need to learn about ourselves.

Silence is not an empty thing. I can recall when I first entered the monastery. I came from a life not only very busy and full of talk, but one full of my own woundedness. Stepping from that world into a day full of silence was without question, an immense shock to the system. Of course, there were still times when we spoke, but in comparison they were few. What I very quickly found was that there were things going on in my head and my heart that I found hard to bear, even frightening. I was perhaps for the first time, facing things in myself that I had avoided for my whole life. It was so hard. And, paradoxically, it was so healing.

The odd thing too that I soon discovered, was that for all the raw hurt and hard stuff within me, the silence was quite gentle and amazingly loving. How can silence be gentle and loving - I would say because in the silence there is God leading and healing. But whatever is happening it was a gift.

It is so often said that for many people it is necessary to hit the bottom before you can rise to the surface. I know that is true from my own experience and it happened in the silence. Of course, that kind of huge immersion is not what most people need or desire. But daily times of silence where there is just you and your innermost self can be as healing as most people need. But the more we plug in the music or turn on the TV or gather is large noisy groups at the pub, the harder it is to find your own inner centre of beauty and peace. 

Here is something else that Sr Joan says in her book: Communication theorists tell us, in fact, that over 80 percent of every message is communicated non-verbally. What I believe in my heart will show in my body.

Wow. That could really be helpful in leading us to become both more self-aware and also, more attuned in the silence of listening, to what others are really saying to us.