Silence

Silence: a third of the title of this blog. I think it's high time I clarified what this means to me.

We focused a lot on silence at my eccentric, bona fide church last night. More specifically, we focused on hearing God's voice. Although we didn't talk about this passage last night, it means a lot to me when it comes to the value of silence:

1 Kings 19:11-13a NIV
"The Lord said [to Elijah], 'Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.' Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave."

So only when Elijah heard the quiet, was God's voice also heard.

Last night we spent over half an hour in silence and in prayer. Everyone in the room (a good 100 people, I'd say) was kneeling, silent, praying, and listening. This might sound a little cult-ish to you, but we like to keep church weird, and we do atypical things like this to grow in our faith, not to brainwash ourselves.  It actually was a pretty amazing experience. Every now and then I would open my eyes to see other people lifting their hands to heaven, others rocking back and forth, others crying; each having a personal conversation with God. How God can have so many private conversations with so many different people at once, I won't try to understand, but the one he had with me was pretty cool so long as I could keep my mind focused. Listening can be very hard.

Listening is the reason I like to walk places without an ipod. Listening is the reason I can sit in silence in my room for hours doing homework or whatever, without iTunes on, or drive in the car without the radio. Listening is the reason I don't mind sitting alone in the dining hall every now and then, with the noise around me but no one talking directly to me.

I think listening is part of the reason my friend Stephen walks slower than anyone I know. It's one of his characteristics everyone knows him by, and he says he walks so slowly because he doesn't want to miss as much. The slower you walk, the more you can take in. Once, I looked out the window and saw him walking outside. He passed a tree and looked up into it, observing who knows what, a bird or squirrel or something, and slowly, slowly walked by, absorbing whatever he saw in this tree, letting it speak to him in a unique way. And I thought, any other person would have completely missed whatever beauty Stephen just witnessed, because they would have been rushing to here or there rather than listening or observing the world around them.

While I speculate that Stephen does this as much, if not more for, the visual than for the auditory, I'm sure he still gets a lot more sound input in doing what he does than the average person. I'm sure he finds God in the silence.

In listening to silence, you will probably find that it doesn't exist. Go out and sit in the middle of the woods. Listen, and you will find that your world is filled with noise. Shut yourself in a sound-proof room and your thoughts will scream in your head; you will hear no silence. It's about listening. If you listen, God will speak. If you wait, God will act. If you are still, God will move. It sounds paradoxical, but it's true.

Therefore silence is a beautiful sound. It's our job to listen.


God bless.