The Good Side of the Sounds of Silence

Be a lover of silence. Silence like the sunlight will illuminate you in God and will deliver you from the phantoms of ignorance. Silence will unite you to God himself.

In the beginning we have to force ourselves to be silent. But then there is born something that draws us to silence.

May God give you an experience of this “something” that is born of silence. If only you practice this, untold light will dawn on you in consequence…after a while a certain sweetness is born in the heart of the exercise and the body is drawn almost by force to remain in silence.

—A saint we only know this side of eternity as Isaac the Syrian wrote that in the 7th century.

Perhaps he was pointed in that direction by lines like, “Be still and know that I am God.” (Psalm 46:10)

Perhaps we should listen.