There is exterior silence,
and there is interior silence.
Exterior silence can be hard to find,
harder, I believe,
in the confines of a city,
in the chaos of a busy family,
in a corporate cubicle,
in the midst of a morning commute...
Exterior silence makes it easier to experience interior silence,
but with practice, interior silence can be experienced anywhere,
in the confines of a city,
in the chaos of a busy family,
in a corporate cubicle,
in the midst of a morning commute...
Both are important.
For those of us not used to practicing interior silence,
exterior silence opens the possibility:
once the traffic, talk, TV, electronic devices,
music, hassle, hustle have been stilled,
and silence descends like a warm blanket,
a blurring mist,
a cool glass of water,
then the jumping mind has a chance to ask,
"Could this quiet shift within?",
and the opportunity presents itself.
So, yes, one can experience exterior silence
without knowing interior silence,
and one can know interior silence
without experiencing exterior silence,
but, generally speaking,
they pair well,
like dark chocolate and Pinot Noir,
or, if you're a nondrinker,
like Oreos and a cold glass of milk.
Once one gets past the fear of silence,
which is, after all, the fear of the unknown,
once one understands that what might arise in silence
deserves to be known, befriended, embraced,
then the descent of silence brings freedom, release, peace...
and God.
And so we seek silence, both without and within.
How will you make
(take, receive, welcome, enter)
silence today?

Text and image © 2018 by Dirk deVries. All rights reserved.
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