way of the heart

I'm aware of the irony of this post, given the fact that I am a poet, a writer, a dealer and craftsperson of words. However recent events in church, work, and home have further strengthened my resolve to think more carefully about the words I speak, and about the value of silence.

In Henri Nouwen's book on desert spirituality and contemporary ministry, he writes about silence as "solitude practiced in action." Contemporary Christians often forget large chunks of Christian history, and we most often neglect the Desert Fathers and Mothers who teach us the way of the desert, the way of the heart. They emphasize silence as not only a way to commune with God or a way of avoiding evil, but in this "wordy world", silence "can be a sign of God's presence in the different forms of ministry."

In this day and age, words dominate our existence. Indeed, they build up the cages in which we operate. As a poet, I craft language and words in ways to help break through the anesthetized daily living so that experiece comes through. The volley of words that come at us through online ads, junk mail, spam mail, billboards, commercials, text messages, emails, etc., -- we are inundated with words, and are driven further and further from the solitude that we need in order to hear and feel the Divine presence in our lives.

With silence, says Nouwen, we are able to tend to our inner fire and to keep the Spirit aflame. In silence, we can guard the Spirit and not dilute the preciousness of our faith, not weaken the strength of our discipline. And, in silence, we are able to discern what word needs to be spoken -- the word that is filled with "fullness and presence, not the human silence of embarrassment, shame, or guilt, but the divine silence in which love rests secure." When we learn to be silent, we can use the word that "calls forth the healing and restoring stillness of its own silence..."

It may sound funny, and slightly contradictory, but silence does and will teach us to speak holiness, to be contemplative and to embody the Divine presence. In silence, we can better understand and hear one another...