The gift of silence means freedom -- freedom from the worried and the cares, the anxious hopes and the deep regrets that burden our soul. This freedom is genuine. It is not an escape from reality but rather a liberation from unreality. We spend most of our lives looking back on the past or anticipating the future. Meditation roots us, instead, in the present moment, the only moment that really exists. It enables us to appreciate every moment of our life for what it truly is -- a fresh, new gift from our Creator.
The gift of silence also means freedom from the din and the noise that are clanging in our heads. "Free me, O Lord," wrote Saint Augustine, "from the chatter that I suffer deep within my soul." In meditation, the busy thoughts that plague us are stilled. The raging storm within is calmed. "Be still and know that I am God," wrote the Psalmist -- and in the stillness of meditation we come to experience God as a source of hope in the midst of our disorder and chaos.
The gift of silence is unity, harmony. We are at one with everyone and everything that exists because we have let go of whatever divides us, whatever separates us -- every barrier that we've built up around our small, frightened ego. In meditation we just be -- with God's own being -- and so we are at one, we are in harmony, with God and with all that shares, as we do, in God's own being.
The gift of silence means being yourself, without excuses to yourself or to anyone else. Silence banishes the "tempters" and "accusers," the distractions that take us off our course and the fears that prevent us from moving forward. In meditation we neither boast of our virtue nor grovel because of our sinfulness. We stop doing anything and allow God to continue to shape us in God's own image and likeness. By simply being ourselves we come to discover who we really are, and since all that God made is good, we discover our own essential goodness. We can delight, as God delights, in the unique creation that we are. Like the Psalmist we can exclaim, "I give you thanks that I am fearfully, wonderfully made!"
From the tradition:
"A brother came to Abbot Pastor and said: Many distracting thoughts come into my mind and I am in danger because of them. Then the elder thrust him out into the open air and said: Open up the garments about your chest and catch the wind in them. But he replied: This I cannot do. So the elder said to him: If you cannot catch the wind, neither can you prevent distracting thoughts from coming into your head. Your job is to say No to them."
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"Abbot Pastor said: Any trial whatever that comes to you can be conquered with silence."
from Thomas Merton, The Wisdom of the Desert
