Taken from Arimathea...
"... where there is emptiness, ignorance too is found,
but where there is abundance of the Spirit, no speech is possible.
At such a time the soul is drunk with the love of God and,
its voice silenced, delights in His glory."
St. Diadochos of Photiki.
Stillness, spiritual silence, is not simply the absence of talk,
of noise, of sound; it is the presence of attention.
The sense of the presence of God silences the mind.
Seeing is very different from hearing, and visual space is different
from auditory space. The things I see are before me, I go and
look for things, my visual field stretches before me. I can
hear things before me, beside me, behind me, even within me; I
stop and listen for things, I am at the centre of my auditory
field. Silent attention returns me to the centre of my being;
in silence I find myself at the still centre of all.
Silence is itself a disclosure of God's presence.
God cannot speak His Word in the depth of our being unless the silence
is there into which the Word can be spoken.
Stillness requires that we stop running away from ourselves,
stop rushing about, filling life with unending streams of activity
that serve to fill all the time and space available.
Constantagitation makes self-awareness impossible.
"Be still, then, and know that I am God."
Psalm 46. 9. BCP.
The Septuagint version of Psalm 46 (45) uses the word "scholasate"
- "be at rest,"- draw back from the endless battle, from the endless
round of activities, give yourself leisure, be still!
- and know that I am God.
Stillness is not the enemy of action. It is the
means of ensuring all our actions are suffused with an awareness
of the presence of God. We draw back into silence to become
aware of His presence at the centre-point, where we are attentively
waiting and listening. The silence about us becomes His word
to us, in us, in that moment, and allows us in turn to become
His word to the world about us.
If we can offer God a spiritual silence where His Word can be spoken,
the Word is spoken in the depths of our being,
and the Word of God speaks Himself in the
world of our relationships and interactions through our lips and
hands. He indwells us, and acts in and through us, so that we
co-operate with Him in the re-creation of the world.
"Intelligent silence is the mother of prayer, freedom
from bondage, custodian of zeal, a guard on our thoughts, a watch
on our enemies, a prison of mourning, a friend of tears, a sure
recollection of death, a painter of punishment, a concern with
judgement, servant of anguish, foe of license, a companion of
stillness, the opponent of dogmatism, a growth of knowledge, a
hand to shape contemplation, hidden progress, the secret journey
upward. For the man who recognises his sins has taken control
of his tongue, while the chatterer has yet to discover himself
as he should."
St. John Climacus. "Ladder." 11.
The average person talks for only a few minutes a day. Does
that mean the average person spends most of each day in silence?!
Far from it! For most of us, an interminable interior dialogue
continues unremittingly through our waking hours.
Absence of speech produces a merely external silence.
Interior silence requires the stilling of the chattering mind
voice. This is a disquieting experience. In silence I become
aware of myself - and this can be a lonely and frightening experience.
Noise, even interior noise, keeps reality out.
Sitting alone in silence or walking in silence, allows me to experience
and come to know myself in a way that transcends all images, all
concepts.
If we attain interior silence, we can give others the space to be themselves with us.
External silence lets the other speak
and lets me hear her voice. I become silent to listen and to
hear. Interior silence lets the other be herself in my company;
I become spacious for her.
Talkativeness is often a strategy for avoiding communication.
Not all silence has spiritual value. The numbed silence of shock,
the stunned silence after a loud noise, the silence of bewilderment,
insolent silence, the silence of word-annihilating rage are all
forms of silence, but none furnishes a probable birthplace for
the Word of God.
"All things lay in peace and silence, and night in her swift course
was half spent, when Your All-Powerful Word leapt down from Heaven,
from Your royal throne, and into the midst of that doomed land,
like a relentless warrior ..."
Wisdom.18. 14-15.
Me: With the richness of all these words, the depths to ponder, I find my self fighting for me to unleash a monologue in response. Oh that I might begin to calm myself and comprehend even the slightest depth of Silence.
