“You talk when you cease to be at peace with your thoughts.” ~ The Prophet
It is always quite amusing to see seminarians deal with a silent retreat. Even people who are studying for the priesthood or religious life and who pray regularly have problems with silence. It is in silence that we can communicate more effectively with God; yet, we often look for sound while we communicate. Whether it be with verbal words or mood music, we want to have something heard in the background because silence, it seems, unnerves us.
Gibran wrote about the depths that stir us when he wrote The Prophet. He knew that silence was a place that we needed to reach because it was in silence that we could do our best listening and our best reflecting. He also knew the “tell” for when we were not at peace with what the silence brought to our attention: we would begin to speak.
Nervous talkers, chatty Cathys: we have all sorts of words to describe people who cannot be silent. Most of the time, they have a hard time with silence because the silence is speaking to them too loudly and they are either anxious or fearful. They talk to break the tension but find that the talk often does them no good.
The more we are invested in the world, the less peace we will have in our hearts. The more that we are invested in the Lord, the greater peace we will have and will be able to retain. We need to learn to get past the noise of the world so that we can plunge into the depths of God. It is in those deep waters that we can find the peace that we need. In that peace, we will be able to see ourselves and our world the way God sees it and us.
Try to reach for the silence today and see what difference it makes in your life. If you find yourself getting chatty, it is merely pointing out the fact that you need to be more rooted in God so that you can tolerate the silence.
FAITH ACTION: Try to spend some time in solitude today, allowing time for God to speak to you in the silence of your heart.