Reflection
We live in a world that thrives on instant communication. Important events are buried amid reporting that spans from one scandal to the next. We are inundated with the trivial and forced to search for valid and true information. It is hard to focus on what is important if we are preoccupied with superficialities and the business of other people’s private lives. It is difficult to turn toward God amidst noise and restlessness. Silence has always been one of the bedrocks of the spiritual search. Our minds need to be still, quiet and at peace. “Be still and know that I am God.”. Silence opens the way to reflection and contemplation. In the embrace of silence, we can be open to Mystery.
Prayer
Teach us to care and not to care
Teach us to sit still.
T.S. Eliot
Action
Try not to be caught up in gossip and noise. Find a quiet space where you can be still and spend a little time there each day.
Suggested Reading
Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.
Mark 1:35
Be still and know that I am God.
Psalm 46:10
It is in deep solitude and silence that I find the gentleness with which I can truly love my brother and sister.
Thomas Merton
Silence will illuminate you in God and deliver you from phantoms of ignorance.
Silence will unite you to God. In the beginning we have to force ourselves
to be silent. But then from our very silence is born something that draws us into deeper silence.
Isaac of Nineveh
Silence is God’s first language; everything else is a poor translation. In order to hear that language, we must learn to be still and to rest in God.
Thomas Keating
The silence is there within us. What we have to do is to enter into it, to become silent, to become the silence. The purpose of meditation and the challenge of meditation is to allow ourselves to become silent enough to allow this interior silence to emerge. Silence is the language of the spirit.
John Main
The quieter the mind the louder the soul.
Matshona Dhliwayo
The quieter you become the more you are able to hear.
Rumi
Within each of us, there is silence. A silence as vast as the universe. And when we experience that silence, we remember who we are.
Gunilla Norris
When you connect to the silence within you, that is when you can make sense of the disturbance going on around you.
Stephen Richards
When you cease to fear your solitude, a new creativity awakens in you. Your forgotten or neglected wealth begins to reveal itself. You come home to yourself and learn to rest within. Thoughts are our inner senses. Infused with silence and solitude, they bring out the mystery of inner landscape.
John O’Donohue