Hi,
And welcome to Hints of Gladness.
Today I want to invite you to Silence.
This is the time of year where people reflect and project about the kind of upcoming year that they want to have.
And as I think about this upcoming year,
What keeps surfacing for me is that I'm being drawn to spend more time practicing silence.
I have to admit that I'm not super excited about practicing silence more.
There are a lot more fun things to do.
At the same time,
I know it'll be good for me.
As I've been reflecting on silence,
These are some of the things that I have been thinking about and have come up as I researched it a bit more too.
I know that silence is a practice that will change how I show up in the world.
Whenever I've consistently practiced silence in the past,
It has always brought about more peace in my life.
As I practice silence,
I also anticipate being more present and open to others and reality.
The practice of silence isn't limited to the absence of sound.
And this is important to realize when we're talking about silence and maybe even defining what it is.
Silence can be experienced as emptiness,
Awareness,
Nothingness,
Formlessness,
And spaciousness.
I also sometimes experience silence as stillness,
Just being,
And a gap or a void.
Practically I think more silence means less noise from sources like social media and TV,
At least for me.
But primarily it means being aware of the debilitating noise in my head and not engaging in it.
The only way to do this is to practice.
I frequently engage in obsessive thinking and I know it impacts my overall well-being.
I feel better on days where I practice being aware of my thoughts and my breath or different ways of being centered.
The mind needs something to do.
And being with our thoughts,
Being with our breath,
Or some other sort of centering practice like using centering prayer and a sacred word all help us with silence.
When I'm silent,
It feels like a homecoming,
Which I believe is mysteriously divine.
By grace I'm being drawn to silence this year,
And by grace I will experience it.
We all need a break from ourselves occasionally,
And one way to do that is by practicing silence.
I've seen it over and over again in my life and in the lives of others,
That practicing silence in one way or another saves people from themselves.
We're often our own worst enemies when it comes to our obsessive thinking,
And that only adds to our suffering and the suffering of others.
It's often repeated in contemplative circles that silence is the language of God,
And it's true as far as I can tell.
If I want to be infused with divine meaning,
Purpose,
And inspiration,
I have to do my part by being silent first.
In John O'Donohue's excellent book,
Anum Cara,
He encourages us to approach silence and solitude with a measure of positive expectation.
The divine connection that takes place in silence is a mystery.
Out of silence,
If we're open to it,
May come our saving grace.
Here are some quotes.
This first one,
Verse two,
Are by Richard Rohr.
Silence needs to be in a larger way than simply a lack of audible noise.
Whenever emptiness,
What seems like empty space or absence of sound,
Becomes our own kind of fullness with its own kind of sweet voice,
We have experienced sacred silence.
And the second one,
From Richard Rohr,
Without some degree of inner and even outer silence,
We are never living,
Never tasting the moment.
The opposite of contemplation is not action,
It is reaction.
We must wait for pure action,
Which proceeds from deep silence.
And from Thomas Keating,
The silence of the creator is thunderous,
Drowning out everything else and hiding in endless creativity.
From Cynthia Borjoe,
Silence is not absence,
But presence.
It is a something,
Not a nothing.
It has substantiality,
Heft,
Force.
You can lean into it,
And it leans back.
It meets you.
It holds you up.
Before you leave this post and click on something else,
I just want to invite you to practice silence a little bit.
And there's so many ways to do it.
I'm going to suggest one that works quite well for me,
And that is to tell my body to be still and to tell my mind to be still.
So just to prompt you a little bit and to help you get going,
Let's do this just for a minute or so.
So sit comfortably,
Close your eyes if you'd like,
Relax your shoulders,
Relax your chest,
And become aware of your body.
And gently tell your body to be still.
Now become aware of your thoughts.
You might already have some thoughts going on.
Become aware of your thoughts.
Just observe them for just a second here.
Gently say to your mind,
Be still.
If you want to continue doing this,
You could set a timer for a few minutes,
Maybe 5,
10,
20 minutes,
And just go back and forth.
Relax your shoulders,
Relax your chest,
Become aware of your body.
Tell your body to be still.
If thoughts start to arise,
Become aware of your thoughts.
Be with them and just tell your mind to be still and just keep rotating between relaxation,
Body stillness,
And mind stillness.
Take good care.
