Hello friends,
This is Mark Gladman,
Also known as Brother Frederick James,
Your friendly neighbourhood monk in dogs.
Welcome to day 23 of our journey into God is.
And I want to share a little.
.
.
I guess collection of notes that I took one day in my little field notes journal.
Where I was reflecting on the idea of God.
Is silence.
And I'll read you my thoughts as they appeared in the journal.
Before we do though,
Let's just stop and pause for a moment,
Take a nice deep breath in.
And out.
To allow our minds,
Our bodies and our hearts to come into alignment.
In this moment right here.
Right now.
I'll share this little reflection,
And I'm just going to give you some time in silence.
And I know there's a little bit of music playing in the background,
But when we get to that silence,
I'm going to fade it out.
And just give you two minutes of solid silence in which to sit and think about what it is that we've been reflecting on today.
And then we'll come back.
To close.
So from my little journal.
I've been thinking a lot about silence lately.
But not like the silence of an empty room,
The absence of noise,
Something deeper,
The kind of silence that happens when you've run out of things to say.
I've noticed that,
And maybe it's because of my work.
I often talk about God as though God were another subject,
Something to explain,
Something to describe.
I can fill pages and audio files with words about God.
I can pray words,
I read words,
I sing words,
I listen to other people's words,
And all of that can be good because words are important.
But eventually there comes a point where words become way too small.
You can say something about God.
And almost immediately realize,
No,
That's true,
But it isn't enough.
God is love,
Yes,
God is presence,
Yes,
God is grace,
Yes,
God is here,
Yes,
But God is more.
And suddenly,
Silence feels less like the absence of God and more like a response to God.
What if silence is what happens when we stop trying to make God fit into our sentences?
I think there's something beautifully freeing about that.
We don't have to solve God.
We don't have to get God exactly right.
We don't have to construct the perfect theology and then protect it from every question.
Notice all those words.
Solve.
Write.
Perfect.
Protect.
Instead,
We can simply sit and listen and maybe even stop listening for a while and just be there.
There's a kind of silence that isn't empty,
It's full.
Full of the things that we can't name,
Full of the presence we can't explain,
Full of mystery.
And I'm seeing that this is why silence.
Is often uncomfortable because silence takes away our ability to control the conversation.
We can't manage God in silence.
We can't put God neatly into a sentence.
We can't turn mystery into information.
We just remain,
And maybe,
I think,
God remains too.
I've been wondering whether some of my deepest encounters with God have actually happened when I wasn't thinking about God at all.
Out on a walk,
Sunrise,
A moment beside the ocean,
Seeing a flower come through some rocks.
Sitting quietly with someone where I didn't need to say anything.
A strange moment when everything becomes still.
No revelation,
No message.
No spiritual experience,
Just silence.
And somehow,
That silence is enough.
Maybe God's not only the one who speaks.
Maybe God is also the silence in which everything that we have said about God falls quiet.
And maybe this is where faith becomes more spacious and expansive enough to breathe.
Let's enjoy sitting with God in the silence just for a couple of minutes now.
Invite you just to take a nice deep breath in.
And out.
And as we wrap up.
I share with you a story.
That I've heard quite often about an interview that was done with Mother Teresa.
I think it was on 60 Minutes in the US.
Where the interviewer asked her,
Well,
You're a nun,
You pray.
What do you say?
And she said,
Not much.
Usually I just sit and listen.
To which the interviewer said,
Well.
You might want to tell us then,
What does God say?
And Mother Teresa's response?
Not much.
Usually God just sits.
And listens.
And may grace,
Peace and love be with us and hold us in those silent moments.
Where that silence is encounter and more than enough.
Until tomorrow,
Friends.
Bye for now.
