Silence

The Mother Tongue of God we recognize!

Photo by Scott Umstattd on Unsplash

The older we become, the more silent we become. Life teaches us the emptiness of chatter and the shallowness of superficialities of our conversation.

When Gwen had her surgery six weeks ago, a huge banner stood in the hallway leading to her room. Here’s the picture of the banner I took:

How does silence help usher healing of a body? Sit with that question and you’ll discover a deep truth. I’ll answer that by simply stating that this noisy world offers us no healing at all. Noise is literally, “disquieting.” In a way, we somehow know, silence is a very, very good thing. When a baby is content, silence is the proof of soul satisfaction. The same is true of adults of every age.

I’ve always found it interesting to remember that when Saint Benedict set up his methods for establishing community, the very first “rule” he offered was: “Listen!”

Something happens when we listen. Perhaps, it is as simple as this: When we listen, we become like God.

It’s important to learn how to listen and practice silence. The people I must admire and respect; the souls I most love and enjoy being around are the people who are fluent in silence. Somehow, these companions have the most to say. It is the quiet souls, the deeper souls who have tapped into the mother tongue of silence.

When we become fluent in silence, we speak the language of God. It has been said that God’s first language is silence. When you think about it; when we read accounts of creation, silence, not words had a major place in life. Every attempt to be quiet is the attempt to go back to Eden—to return to the Mother Tongue of silence.

I wanted to share two different poems with you this week. These two poems are about how to listen and my own attempt to describe the Mother Tongue of God. These two poems got stirred up in me perhaps because I am speaking this week about the Voice of God and how to listen to this great Voice.

The American poet, Emily Dickinson wrote:

Tell all the truth but tell it slant —

Poetry is a witness we offer to say things in slant—not directly; not straightforward; not in loud hyperbole but in a softer, more slanted way. Truth might be too much to hear if we heard it full force and full faced. We speak it a slant way because the soul is shy and slant and silence is the best language we can offer to speak our truth.

See what you think as you read these two poems. As you read them a couple of times, notice what is happening in your body as you read them; notice what is happening in our busy minds.

These two poems are a invitation to practice silence and to listen to a Voice from beyond ourselves. I really do think that in this invitation—the One who speaks has also sent this invitation with an RSVP!

Why am I saying this in a noisey, gong filled, crashing symbol, deafening world of violence? I’m writing these poems because silence is the Mother Tongue of God and to speak this language, we must learn to listen.

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