Silence

Silence can be a great gift. The silence of my porch on a summer evening. The silence of my morning prayer time. The silence of the church early on Sunday morning before the first service begins. In a world that is often too noisy, I yearn for these times of silence in which God feels very present.

But silence can also be oppressive and empty. Cataclysmic events such as the wildfires that destroyed Lahaina in Hawaii, the September 11 terrorist attacks, or the riots at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021, can leave us in stunned silence, desperate for words to make sense of the incomprehensible.

Even more powerful are the personal losses that shake us to the depths of our souls. The spouse who dies suddenly; the terminal diagnosis; the oppressive experience of injustice; the child trapped by a vortex of addiction or mental illness. Any of these experiences and so many others can leave us silenced by forces that seem arbitrary and capricious. Our lives are turned upside down without notice, often isolating us in a silence that seems impenetrable. 

Psalm 62 gives us words for this experience. Whatever has happened to the psalmist — personal loss, illness, persecution, an act of injustice — the attack comes from a force beyond his or her control.

How long will you assail me to crush me, all of you together,*

       as if you were a leaning fence, a toppling wall?

They seek only to bring me down from my place of honor;*

       lies are their chief delight.

They bless with their lips,*

       but in their hearts they curse. (Ps 62:3-5)

Then comes the silence. “For God alone my soul in silence waits,” writes the psalmist in v. 6. The waiting may have felt oppressive or even empty, but it did not feel hopeless. The psalmist continues, “For God alone my soul in silence waits; truly, my hope is in [God].”

Even in the most oppressive of silences, God remains present. Not necessarily to fix us or to right a wrong as we might desire. Instead, God waits with us in the silence. To fill us with peace. To remind us we are not alone. To surround us with love, grace and mercy.

As Brother Curtis Almquist of the Society of St. John the Evangelist, reflecting on Psalm 62, said last year, “When we find ourselves silenced, when we have lost our voice or our ability to hear, when any movement we might take in life is being held captive, at those times we cling to hope. When we are in an intractable, unavoidable, unchosen state of silence and stillness, to cling to the hope that we are in a state well known to God. This is familiar territory to God, where our emptiness is actually openness to God, especially when we have no other choice. This is when we are in a place of hearing and knowing God.”