Elected silence sing to me,
And beat upon my whorled ear,
Pipe me to pastures still and be
The music that I care to hear.
So wrote G M Hopkins in his poem The Habit of Perfection. Choosing to live a life dominated by silence is not for everyone, and Hopkins himself chose to join the Jesuits rather than become a monk. Nowadays silence is often viewed as a “dead” time – it makes us feel awkward and compels us to fill it. Our church services are packed with noise – singing, readings, music, sermons. We say a lot to God but eschew the stillness that enables us to hear from Him. Rarely is there time set aside in our liturgies to wait on God through silence. Yet silence is important for it’s the special place where we can truly meet God in intimate and wordless communion.
Christ retreated into the wilderness to pray, to a silent place without worldly distractions where He could focus intensely on God’s presence. It is only when we are completely silent to the world around us that we may sense God reaching over to us and taking us by the hand. Achieving this level of quietness is like peeling an onion – the shedding of wayward thoughts layer by layer.
An elderly man was seen to enter a deserted church every afternoon. He would sit at the back for a long while, then leave without saying a word. On being asked if he was OK, he just pointed to the cross and said: “I look at Him, and He looks at me”. That silence was never empty, it was filled with the presence of God.
