21 Dec The Gift of Silence

I walked quietly around the lake, leaves crunching under my feet as little animals skittered about, gathering up any remaining acorns or food they could before the freezing weather began. I squinted at the winter sun, which seemed aching to set just below the horizon. I knew we needed to make it back to our car before dark, but I still paused to take in the view of bright yellows and oranges that faded quickly into darkness before my eyes.

The kids ran ahead of me, laughing and kicking up leaves, yet I stood mesmerized, feeling a bit like Thoreau when he reflected,

Sometimes…I sat in my sunny doorway from sunrise
till noon, rapt in a revery, amidst the pines and hickories and sumachs,
in undisturbed solitude and stillness, while the birds sing around or
flitted noiseless through the house, until by the sun falling in at
my west window, or the noise of some traveller’s wagon on the distant
highway, I was reminded of the lapse of time. I grew in those seasons
like corn in the night, and they were far better than any work of the
hands would have been. 

The fading of the children’s voices served as a cue and I snapped to attention, my motherly instinct urging me towards my little ones.

And yet….how I longed to stay! To sit beneath some tree and just watch the sun fall. To hear nothing but the whispers of wind and the skittering of the animals.

I have ached lately for more silence in my life. Perhaps it is the reality of large family living during a time when we are often confined to our home, all together, lacking in privacy or solitude. Perhaps it is from the times I tune into news or social media only to witness words deployed as weapons to destroy people rather than edify. Perhaps it is from the times I speak too quickly or too much, not hesitating as I ought to wait for the Spirit’s prompting to either speak or remain silent.

Scripture tells us it is our words that get us into the most trouble. As Eugene Peterson so powerfully translates,  ^“It only takes a spark, remember, to set off a forest fire. A careless or wrongly placed word out of your mouth can do that. By our speech we can ruin the world, turn harmony to chaos, throw mud on a reputation, send the whole world up in smoke and go up in smoke with it, smoke right from the pit of hell” (James 3:6, MSG). C.S. Lewis reflected, “I have often repented of speech but hardly ever of silence.”

If silence and solitude are so valuable to our spiritual lives and interpersonal relationships, why do so few of us value these practices? The truth is, we feel awkward in solitude or silence. It is a foreign posture to our society. We tend to think there’s something wrong with “overly quiet people,” rather than face our own loquaciousness. And yet, if we are honest, most of us are weary from words and need a break from the many background noises that attempt to narrate our lives.

So – how do we get more silence? We Americans can be very good at paying attention to a lot of things. We track our calorie intake. Our investments and spending. Statistics of our favorite sports team.

What if we paused for even five seconds before we opened our mouths, giving thought before we expound on something? What if we chose our words carefully, prayerfully? And what if we intentionally made room for periods of silence throughout our day instead of grabbing our phone or running to some other distraction whenever there is a quiet moment?

It is only when we are silent that we can listen well. And if we listen, What might the Lord speak and reveal to us?

In the few remaining days before Christmas, It’s my plan to steal away to spend some time in complete silence, listening to the voice that matters most –  the Word made Flesh – and reveling in the miracle of Christ’s incarnation: Emmanuel, God with us. Will you join me?