The Gift of Silence (II)
There is an obvious and deep irony in any attempt to talk about silence. It’s like trying to describe the ineffable or depict the invisible. The task itself is inherently impossible. Silence can only speak for itself: not through words, but through experience. The best way to begin, therefore, is not by any definition or analysis, but by a story.
There is a familiar little account in the alphabetical collection of traditions that have come down to us from the desert fathers of the early Christian centuries. It is said that one day Abba Theophilus, who was an archbishop, came to Scetis, a desert wasteland and spiritual paradise, where great numbers of monks carried on their unseen spiritual warfare.
Archbishop Theophilus made his way to the cell of Abba Pambo, a man recognized and acclaimed for his humility and wisdom. The brethren who accompanied Theophilus said to Abba Pambo, “Say something to the archbishop, so that he may be edified.” Abba Pambo replied: “If he is not edified by my silence, he will not be edified by my speech.” [1]
There is really little more that can or should be said. If people are not edified by our silence, then they will not be edified by our words.
In the beginning there was absolute silence. Through His Word, God spoke into this silence, to create the heavens and the earth. Then, on the cosmic Sabbath known as “the seventh day,” God rested. His Word, however, has continued its creative activity throughout human history. As God declares through the prophet Isaiah, “My Word that goes forth from my mouth will not return to me empty; it shall accomplish that which I purpose and succeed in the thing for which I sent it” (Isa 55:11). To affirm that God creates ex nihilo is to say that He speaks out of silence, to bring all things into existence by the power of His creative Word. Word and silence, then, complement each other. Silence, in the most positive sense, is the environment and atmosphere, the sacred space, into which God speaks His Word, both to create the world and to save it from death and corruption.
Further on in Old Testament tradition, silence becomes the medium for divine revelation. In a terrifying epiphany recounted in the first Book of Kings, God appeared on a mountain to the prophet Elijah. As the Lord passed by, there came a mighty wind, so strong it split the mountain and shattered the rocks in pieces. But, the narrative tells us, “the Lord was not in the wind.” After the wind there came an earthquake, then a fire; but the Lord was in neither. Then, the passage concludes, “after the fire a still, small voice” (1 Kings 19:12). The New Revised Standard Version renders this more forcefully: “after the fire the sound of sheer silence.” Through this paradoxical image— “the sound of sheer silence”—God reveals both His presence and His purpose.
~Adapted from the Very Rev. John Breck, Life in Christ, Orthodox Church in America (oca.org), February 01, 2005
[1] Benedicta Ward, Sayings of the Desert Fathers, (London: Mowbray, 1975), p. 69
