Silence is Grace

The world needs quiet. More. Surely.

I've been thinking about Katherine's post lately.

"It’s a great blessing to share words, but it’s a great grace to know when to be quiet."

Most people are simply trying to express their soul. They don't mean to be loud.
People are merely seeking to be understood.
They fear if they are silent they will be overlooked...like the shy child on the playground during recess.
No one wants to be that child.

But, chances are...years later...you remember that quiet, shy child...the one standing by himself on the playground...or sitting alone at the lunch table...and the silence speaks louder than words.

Over the noise and shouts and laughter of the past, you see that child and the silence is thick and loud and ripe.

So we talk and shout and laugh throughout our day in hopes that we won't become that child. Who wants to be a child pitied, ignored, and alone?

And in the noise, we all hear the silence of that child louder than ever before.

But no one moves towards the child.
Because no one wants to enter the silence.
We are scared of what we will find. Or hear.
We fear who we will find there.

So we turn and walk away. And the silence of that child yells at us. It haunts us.
Because it is louder than the words of the playground.

We never think, for a second, that entering the silence might be healing. Cleansing. Renewing.
In the silence...we might meet God....and realize how mute the sounds of the world are.