We have developed an allergy to silence and obscurity. We have created within ourselves such a need to do and accomplish and make that effectiveness becomes the rudder of our entire existence. Silence terrifies us. After having been silent, we have nothing we can tell people we have done. We just were. Silence goes against what Henri Nouwen calls “the security of having something valuable to do.”8 Spending time in silence allows the things that crowd our existence to empty out.
