“In the silence of the heart God speaks. If you face God in prayer and silence, God will speak to you. Then you will know that you are nothing. It is only when you realize your nothingness, your emptiness, that God can fill you with Himself. Souls of prayer are souls of great silence.”
Mother Teresa
Whenever anything disagreeable or displeasing happens to you,
remember Christ crucified and be silent.
–St. John of the Cross
(grave marker, St Kevin’s Monastery / Glendalough National Park, County Wicklow, Ireland /Julie Cook / 2015)
There is nothing more crushing, more suffocating, more humbling, more welcoming…
nay more invigorating than Silence.
It is penetrating, lonely, encompassing, exhilarating and greatly needed.
Silence is soothing, healing, teaching and utterly necessary.
Yet it is feared.
It is avoided and fought with the frantic filling of each and any void with noise…
Loud, raucous and incessant…
Jabbering nervous nonsense…
Anything to stave the penetrating and uncomfortable knowingness of Silence.
For it is more familiar and more knowing than self ever dares on its own
There is a sickening dread and queasy uneasiness because vulnerability is glaringly exposed…
Yet there is truth within it’s vast and sweeping depths…
As truth must be fully purged if one is ever to become pure.
It is required if one is ever to hear the stillness found
in the presence of the The Great I AM
But the Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him.”
Habakkuk 2:20
cookiecrumbstoliveby 
Deeply beautiful.
High praise Nicodemas—thank you
Omg amazing
Reblogged this on Talmidimblogging.
[…] Source: The weight of silence […]
So true. So many run from silence, but in it rest the things that make the soul complete.
I appreciate silence Julie, but preferably punctuated by the sound of the sea gently lapping on the shore.
🙂
Well, well, well, I see we’ve had a double dose of steroids today! Even before I read your words, the two quotes at the top had blown me away. I’ve never really feared silence. Actually I find it quite comforting and it doesn’t require anything of me. It just lets me be me. It lets me find time to talk to God. It lets me offer up all my deep dark secrets for cleansing.
And after 31 years of dealing daily with more raucous and cacophonous noise than imaginable, silence has become even more golden. Like David said, I too love it when it’s punctuated with sounds of the sea, or songs of the birds, or the gentle rhythms of living things. Love and hugs, N 🙂 ❤
And I’m right there with both of you–and I think in part it’s because we know Who is found in that silence …and after our lives and what we’ve lived as well as lived through, we are more than grateful to be in His presence — battle weary as we are–but for many, for the world at large–there is indeed fear – one look at our entertainment industries testifies to that.. Sadly so…
Absolutely! On all counts too! I just don’t know how anyone survives this rat race without His grace and presence in their lives! Or why for that matter! 😘❤️