Shh. Close your eyes and just listen. Don’t say a word. Turn off your music. Listen for as long or as short as you’d like.
Silence is so LOUD sometimes.
And I didn’t think that it made me as uncomfortable as it does.
In college, I had a professor who would periodically dedicate the first ten to twenty (and sometimes longer) minutes of class to pure silence. He had discovered its beauty and wanted to share that discovery with us. By the end of the year, I thought I had come to appreciate its beauty.
That is, until I went on the World Race.
Each night, we spend time together as a team. During this time, everyone can have an opportunity to share where she’s at as well as encourage the others to walk in the gifts the Lord has graced us with.
And sometimes, there’s really long, seemingly uncomfortable silences where no one says anything for what feels like forever (turns out it’s usually never more than five minutes). And my heart races. I can feel it race. One time I even teared up a bit; the silence was so loud. I didn’t know what to do with it.
I don’t mind the silence when I’m alone. I expect it. I mean, I’m alone. I can even turn my music off and simply sit and be perfectly fine with it. It’s the silence in a group that I don’t know what to do with. I can’t help myself from thinking: We should be talking about something. I sometimes even break the silence with a joke, like, Well, I asked you all here today because… I find myself making any excuse to escape the wordless conversations.
In Albania, I truly met silence for the first time. A woman we had gotten to know throughout the month shared a mysterious and holy experience with me. Upon her finishing, I began to weep, right there in front of everyone at the dinner table. I was not sure exactly why I had been moved so deeply until I began to realize the holiness in silence. How it was an opportunity to breathe the breaths of my Father. How silence gave me an opportunity unlike any other to bask in the glory of my Lord without interruption or distraction.
I’ve discovered the beauty that my professor was talking about. I can say with joy and peace, “Hello, Silence. It’s nice to finally meet you.”
