“Can you hear me now? Can you hear me now?”
~Verizon television commercial~

Being silent is not introversion. Nor is it simply a disposition or demeanor. It is not so much how we behave as how we have our being. It is the completely open and actively engaged interaction with the real. By being silent, I mean that special intention to be radically available and responsive to what Merton called “an invisible fecundity, a dimmed light, a meek namelessness, a hidden wholeness” that imbues all reality. More than the absence of sound, silence is the prayerful possibility in which we are invited to discover and live in agreement with that original harmony, sacred and secret, that resides beneath, behind, between, or within all that is, including ourselves.

Silence is the dark cavern into which we must flee like the prophet Elijah or St. Benedict or St. Francis or Muhammad or Tenzin Palmo, in order to hear the beckoning voice of God asking, “Why are you here?” These cave dwellers were not escapists. Their intention was not to flee into some faux-forever. They went away to the cave for a time to listen. Being silent involves getting to where we can hear the burning questions, both the deep questions of our heart and of our time. Not to seek or find or make a cave is to risk never hearing the soul’s queries. It means we are relegated to living by the cacophony of the dominant culture whose plentiful answers are to the wrong questions. Sadly, this is like planning your elopement to new life with your beloved only to find out that you have placed the ladder beneath the window of the wrong house?

As a living laboratory for the experiment with truth, entering the silence makes possible not only the discovery of our true self but the difficult and delightful work of encountering the Holy, not in the strong wind, or the earthquake, or the fire, but in the swiftly passing presence and the still small voice. With our backs against the wall, from deep in the cave of silence, we hear the voice calling us to the entrance, our faces wrapped in the mantle of humility and awe, fear and trembling, where if we survive we might catch a glimpse of the divine or hear the loud whisper of God.

At other times, just before we gulp or gasp, the still small voice might come not from outside the entrance but from deeper down in the cave. Psst! Come in deeper. Deeper. When we make our way into what the mystics call “the cave of the heart,” we drop down into a silent space where we can listen loudly. We listen in and from and to the silence. This indigenous, God-placed space within us cradles the silence that cradles us and that enhances our chances of hearing the essential questions which themselves provide the passion, power, and guidance to respond since the questions are the Spirit in disguise. If we lack the energy to respond, chances are it’s because we are living by the wrong questions or by someone else’s questions. Or worse yet someone else’s answers. It may be time to move the ladder.

The supreme example of this is Jesus’ 40 day retreat in the desert (and you thought a retreat was all serenity, birdsong, and vegan meals). What is most important is not that before his ministry Jesus passed the True Self Test by having the right answers to Satan’s temptations. Rather, it is that in his experiment with the truth of who he was, and whose he was, and who he was being called to be, he discovered that Satan’s enticements were rooted in the wrong questions. Sitting, sleeping, dreaming, eating little, walking some, fasting and praying mostly, all of it praying and wrestling to the point of exhaustion in the desert’s dusty silence, Jesus realized they weren’t his questions at all. They were neither the essential questions of life nor the burning questions of his life, of his heart. Sometimes the cave of the heart where we experiment with the immediate or unfolding truth of our lives looks and sounds and feels more like Big Time Wrestling than the scientist’s sterile lab.

In silence, Jesus ’ heard his questions. They revolved around living a life faithful to being the beloved of God. They concerned how to awaken each and every person no matter their power, prestige, or possessions to their own innate, God-given belovedness. They dealt with how to encourage people to live and interact with all others from that embodied truth, and in this way to participate in the dream of God.

REFLECTION:

• Do you have a regular place and time to listen deeply? If not, consider finding such a place and time.
• Are you aware of what distracts you most from listening for life’s burning questions?
• Do you have a sense of what your soul is summoning you to at this time in your life?

Artwork: Christ in the Desert — The Scorpion. Stanley Spencer