Human discourse and writing about God and the things of God—yes, even the best of it, the Scriptures held sacred by Jews and Christians—are always inexact analogues, precisely because they are expressions limited by the specifics of culture. However necessary as a guide for faith, the Bible itself represents the attempts of human beings to express what is finally inexpressible: the identity, the nature, the meaning of God for the world. Behind the words are experiences that (faith insists) were manifestations of God within history. But the experiences occurred, were understood and were perceived as meaningful in silence—just as their meaning is plumbed by us in silence today. In every case, human discourse is less clear and less creative than the silence of God. “While gentle silence enveloped all things,” God made Himself known. And so He continues to do. “The Lord is in His holy temple,” announced the prophet Habakkuk. “Let all the earth keep silence before Him.”
This silence is not nothingness, it is not denial. God alone, who is our absolute future, remains (in the words of Karl Rahner) “the incomprehensible mystery to be worshipped in silence.” Our fulfillment in His eternity remains, too, “a mystery which we have to worship in silence by moving beyond all images into the ineffable”—into that of which we cannot speak. Many earnest people throughout history have found a deep security and comfort in this, for we can say only what God is not, since He is beyond all human conceptions of Him. Hence, by rejecting false images, we can say that God is not a stern accuser, not a rich uncle, not a demanding accountant, not a passive spectator.
But it is possible to say something rather than only to deny the negatives—as long as we understand that our language is always metaphoric. It is at least possible to say that God approaches us not when we are babbling away about Him, but when we force ourselves to remain still: when we not only refrain from speech, glances, gestures and any form of communication, but when we try to let thoughts become quiet and emotions calm.
Deep interior silence is listening, heedful attentiveness, and it is the condition of prayer; it does not mean attending nothing, but becoming aware of the enveloping Presence that makes breath and life possible. This kind of quiet attention is not only essential for a discovery of who we are, what we are thinking, where we are going with our lives. It is also an absolute requirement if we are to allow God to be God for us, for in His presence we are all of us passive, all of us receivers. In His presence, we experience our contingency, our total dependence; that, too, is part of the good news, for we know that we simply cannot heal all our wounds, that for all our ideals and all our goals, we cannot provide ultimate meaning for our life, we can only recognize it. The source of it is elsewhere. “Be still, and know that I am God,” the psalmist hears.
From Donald Spoto, The Hidden Jesus: A New Life
“Prayer is the conversation of the spiritual intellect with God. Imagine what state of spiritual awareness is necessary to give us the capacity to stand without faltering in the presence of the Master and to speak with him face-to-face.” –Evagrios of Pontus
From John Anthony McGuckin, The Book of Mystical Chapters: Meditations on the Soul’s Ascent: from the Desert Fathers and other Early Christian Contemplatives
