The Healing Place of Silence

Let me seek then, the gift of silence, and poverty, and solitude, where everything I touch is turned into prayer. - Thomas Merton

There’s a language beyond words. Silence creates the space for it. Sometimes when we feel powerless to speak words that are meaningful, when we have to back off into unknowing and helplessness, but remain in the situation, silence creates the space that’s needed for a deeper happening to occur. But often, initially, that silence is uneasy. It begins “as a small frightened thing” and only slowly grows into the kind of warmth that dissolves tension.

- Ron Rolheiser, from a longer reflection, "The Healing Place of Silence"