Sabbath Makes Space for Silence

“Be still, and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10)

"For God alone my soul waits in silence; from him comes my salvation." (Psalm 62:1)  
 
Why do I run from silence?

I complain of the busyness, the stress, the hurried life. Though I am the mama, the one who is given the task of planning, if not directing, the day, I cannot stop. A loud life assures me of my self-importance and pushes away the fear that I am not.

And even when I push back against a culture, loud and frenetic, "I cannot live in the death of speech." I am given the chance to see the roaring waves pound unending on the beach, but "I cannot stand beside it mute." Rather than let the beauty fill me I fill the silence with "the labor of my words."

Why do we prefer the bombardment of words--the text message, the tweet, those ticker boxes on the news--when we know it deafens?
  
Mr. Berry says it right and true: "It is in the silence that my hope is, and my aim." 



Silence by Wendell Berry

Though the air is full of singing
my head is loud
with the labor of words.

Though the season is rich
with fruit, my tongue
hungers for the sweet of speech.

Though the beech is golden
I cannot stand beside it
mute, but must say

"It is golden," while the leaves
stir and fall with a sound
that is not a name.

It is in the silence
that my hope is, and my aim.
A song whose lines

I cannot make or sing
sounds men's silence
like a root. Let me say

and not mourn: the world
lives in the death of speech
and sings there.