You’ve heard the saying, “silence speaks louder than words,” right? I’m coming to realize how true that is. In Counseling and Psychological theories, silence is sometimes your harshest and most effective weapon. Silence can mean, “I think you’re wrong but you can’t handle that rebuke yet,” or “please keep talking in the hopes that you come to hear the misconceptions in your speech.” In conversations, silence can mean disinterest, lack of attention, or even offense. Silence among friends can be positive and negative. It could mean that the relationship is so deep, so familiar, that no words are needed. Long lapses of silence can mean hurtful things like, “I don’t have time for you,” or simply that the friendship is coming to a close. I, unfortunately, have been on the giving and receiving end of this. I haven’t written on this blog for awhile. Even that silence can speak volumes; “I don’t have anything to say,” “I’m busy,” “I don’t think anyone would be interested in hearing this.”
Sometimes the atmosphere that is created from silence can be so good. Do you have those moments? Mine is in the car after a long day at work with multiple interruptions of, “Lydia, I have a question...” sometimes I get into my car, start the engine, and before putting it into gear, I reach for the knob that most people crank up, and I turn it down. Silence. Sometimes that silence literally settles onto my soul like a cool cloth on a fevered forehead, or a balm on a burn. It relieves. I’ve also had the opposite reaction to silence. I could be sitting there, knowing a time of silence before the Lord is what is needed, and suddenly every muscle in my body decides to revolt, and before I know it, I am standing at the sink doing dishes. I don’t have a great love of doing dishes, so you can imagine my surprise when I realize I would rather being doing this chore than sit in silence.
But today I read something that reminded me about the power of silence. Thomas a Kempis, a canon regular during the late 1300s writes, “O Jesus, splendor of eternal glory and comfort of the pilgrim soul, I am voiceless before You, but I will have my silence speak to You.” (Kempis, 1984) Two things amaze me; firstly, that he had such an understanding of God’s glory as to invoke speechlessness. That’s the kind of reaction that shows he got it, he understood Who his God was. Secondly, that the only form of communication he had as a finite man in response to the glory of his infinite God was silence. To Kempis, silence was the only way to convey the message of awe that words were too weak to carry.
This tells me two things. One, that silence as a form of communication is highly undervalued, even though it tends to be overused by mankind as forms of punishment, manipulation, or avoidance. That’s our tendency and our teaching. Secondly, that we need those times of silence, but that we go about it all wrong. Have you come across those admonitions of silence before? I have been guilt-tripped, muscled into, and drop-kicked by this notion of required silence. And what’s worse is, it mostly leads me into a cycle of poor performance and more guilt. My soul was made for silence before the Lord, but my body revolts. So, here’s what I’ve learned from Kempis and his sentence on silence; truly seeing Who my God is, leads to my expression of silence. Silence may need to come first at times, but I believe the norm is meant to be more of a response than a decisive act.
Ok, maybe a real life scenario would help wrap this up. Say I hit one of those moments; I’m sitting in my chair, feeling the need to simply be silent. At the same moment, I also recognize the foot twitching that usually leads to the sudden sleep-walking type symptoms of subconscious avoidance through dish washing. I could force myself to sit in that chair and twitch away while the mantra in my head plays the broken record of, “Be still, be silent. Be still, be silent.” But, what if I turned all that energy into simply remembering? I love it when the Psalmist wrote, “These things I remember, as I pour out my soul: how I would go with the throng and lead them in procession to the house of God with glad shouts and songs of praise...Hope in God; for I shall again praise Him, my salvation and my God.” (Psalm 42:4-5b) He was remembering how it used to be, and his meditation on God’s goodness and past grace caused him to be content and hopeful for the future. The power of remembrance is an amazing catalyst for the power of silence. That act of remembrance of what God has done and Who He is has a higher success rate of bringing me to my knees in silence, or to my feet in rejoicing than the hammering words, “Be still, be silent.” I am still called to be still and be silent, but in response to what? My duty, or my God? Yeah, I think I’ll pick my God.
