“There is an indifferent, or even negative atiitude toward
silence which sees in it a disparagement of God’s revelation in the Word. This is the view which misinterprets silence
as a ceremonial gesture, as a mystical desire to get beyond the Word. This is to miss the essential relationship of
silence to the Word. Silence is the
simple stillness of the individual under the Word of God. We are silent before hearing the Word because
our thoughts are already directed to the Word, as a child is quiet when he
enters his father’s room. We are silent
after hearing the Word because the Word is still speaking and dwelling within
us. We are silent at the beginning of
the day because God should have the first word, and we are silent before going
to sleep because the last word also belongs to God. We keep silence solely for the sake of the
Word, and therefore not in order to show disregard for the Word but rather to
honor and receive it.
Silence is nothing else but waiting for God’s Word and
coming from God’s Word with a blessing.
But everybody knows that this is something that needs to be practiced
and learned, in these days when talkativeness prevails. real silence, real stillness, really holding
one’s tongue comes only as the sober consequence of spiritual stillness.”
Dietrich
Bonhoeffer, Life Together, pg. 79
