The Apparently Useless Silence

When we really want to hear, and be heard by, someone we love, we do not go rushing into noisy crowds. Silence is a form of intimacy. That’s how we experience it with our friends and lovers. As relationships grow deeper and more intimate, we spend more and more quiet time alone with our lover. We talk in low tones about the things that matter. We do not shout them to each other. We may shout about them to others, but quietness is the hallmark of love.

*J. Brent Bill. Holy Silence: A Gift of Quaker Spirituality.

What we struggle with as to Silence, is partly this idea, which is fully fallacious, that we must be doing something or we are doing nothing. Silence introduces us to an intentional communion that, we discover, is more, not less, than being or not being productive and efficient. In Silence, we enter the life of Life, and this being-in-Quiet is a profound trust that what is most vital to us is not on the surface, cannot be measured, and is beyond even what we call mystery. In the Silence, we may not agree on what to call this Something, but that is not a problem, for the communion with Life, with ourselves each, and with each other, elevates us into a Love-knowing wherein we know by experience that this Something is and is not separate from any one of us. In fact, in some sense, the Presence appears more fully present when we are together with nothing to say, nothing to do, only to be, than when we are apart from the joined fellowship. And, we find, this Presence is the source and the content of our being present to each other; that is, to speak of our presence is to speak of the Presence.

*Excerpts from Brian K. Wilcox. Lotus of the Heart, http://onelifeministries.org , "The Apparently Useless Silence." 04.01.2019.