Finding God in the Silence

Mother Teresa is quoted as saying “We need to find God, and [God] cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature – trees, flowers, grass – grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence....We need silence to be able to touch souls.

Have you noticed how many times in our liturgies we are invited to observe silence? I counted at least 12 occasions in Thanksgiving for Creation and Redemption (Page 456 in A New Zealand Prayer Book) where the rubric invites us to be silent. It might be after a reading or at the time when the priest breaks the bread or at the end of prayer – they are all times when we can take the opportunity to listen for God. And that invitation can also be found in 1 Kings 19:1-13. It’s the story of the prophet Elijah listening for God.

Many of us are familiar with the King James version of the Bible, the translation of the Hebrew phrase as a still small voice has become treasured language in terms of how we understand God speaking to us, but the original Hebrew says sheer silence, utter silence. Could it be that silence, sheer silence, is very often the necessary prerequisite for hearing the still, small voice of God?

Sound bites serve to get our attention. Politicians and advertisers and, admittedly, sometimes even preachers, capitalise on that and use sound bites. And they may get our attention, but we pay attention in the silence bites. The noise of earthquake, wind, and fire got Elijah's attention so that he was prepared to pay attention in the silence.

So, how can we pay attention to God in the silence bites? How can we even find silence? It’s more and more difficult for us to choose silence when communication is possible. To let the phone ring, to leave an email unread, to not answer the door, all mount to what might be seen as social sabotage. To choose to be silent in God’s presence for even one hour we have to risk the loss of connection with other people, who may

have a hard time understanding how anything could be more important than responding to them and their immediate needs.

We also have to handle our own sense of anxiety. What if that call is from the hospital? What if someone wants to ask me out for a meal? What if, what if...

I know how difficult it is to find silence in our increasingly busy world, but there are a whole lot of ways of finding God in the silence – going alone to a place outside where there is very little sound and no interruptions; pausing for a short time in the busyness of the day; making a retreat or going to a quiet day; using a mantra to say when you need to experience the gift of silence and so on.

So, I invite you find a special time or place for silence and as you experience that silence, I hope that you, like Elijah, will find God in the silence and that your soul will be touched.