I have been using “They Speak by Silence” by a Carthusian. It begins with words that touch my heart deeply in its description of silence:
Our silence is not just emptiness and death. On the contrary, it should draw ever nearer, and bring us nearer, to the fullness of life. We are silent because the words by which our souls would fain live cannot be expressed in earthly language.
Oh, how these words resonate with me. Each time I venture into a time of extended silence, words fail to accurately describe the vastness of the silence. Words have consistently fallen short in a feeble attempt to describe the silence. I can say that when I set aside time to enter the realm of silence that no matter how far I expand, no matter how deep I go, I don’t begin to touch the infinite. The mysteries of the silence are deep and enticing for they call me to travels beyond sightseeing of this realm. The mysteries of the silence seduce me to follow to the riches of time and place unimagined in the daily shuffle of noise and confusion. Indeed, the silence is a far cry from emptiness. The silence is filled to overflowing. “They Speak by Silence,” says it eloquently with this gathering of words:
Mysteries are not dark shadows, before which we must shut our eyes and be silent.
On the contrary, they are dazzling splendors, with which we ought to sate our gage, wilts recognizing, however, that they extend far beyond its capacity, and that our eyes cannot
Bear their full radiance. It is in contemplating them, in speaking of them, that we dispose ourselves to be given here below as much of them as God sees fit to impart to us
and to receive one day that fullness of light which will be the essence of our beatitude.
Often, we think of mysteries as the dark unknown. Perhaps they are a little scary with dark shadows looming suspensefully. By definition, a mystery is something that is difficult or impossible to understand or explain, such as any truth unknowable except by divine revelation.
Even in the mysteries of the silence, there is great knowing when we cast our gaze upon that which our human mind cannot comprehend yet the soul of our beingness knows with great assurance. It is in the otherworldly realm of silence that we capture a glimpse of the Divine if only as a feeling. In the fleeting moments of silence, a flash of knowing appears and with a blink of the eye evaporates leaving one yearning to return once more to the mysteries of the silence.
Know that I am here with you. know that I am here for you
Love
Rev. Karen