“My dear Wormwood: Music and silence--how I detest them both!" ~Silence with God

And after He had sent the multitudes away, He went up to the mountain by Himself to pray; and when it was evening, He was there alone.
Matthew 14:23

“But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you."

Matthew 6:6

O NOW I see what beauties lay
O’er summer’s close,
And autumn’s calm breathing with decay,
With her last dying rose,
Sweeter than spring.

A calm awaiting seems to lie
O’er leaf and wave;
A calm undressing, all so silently,
For calmness of the grave,
Unrepining.

The noiseless brook its banks along
Winds like a lake,
Save stilly heard a rippling under-song,
Whose passing eddies make
Silence more still.

Upon the dread and dim serene,
Each thought that breaks,
And every breath that stirs the quiet scene,
A mighty Being speaks,
Whom we await.

Such is the awful calm they learn
Beneath Thy cross
Who fain would sit, looking for Thy return,
And count the world but loss
Thy love to gain.

ISAAC WILLIAMS
The Banks in Autumn

        “My dear Wormwood: Music and silence--how I detest them both! How thankful we should be that ever since our Father entered Hell--though longer ago than humans, reckoning in light years, could express, no square inch of infernal space and no moment of infernal time has been surrendered to either of those abominable forces, but all has been occupied by Noise--Noise, the grand dynamism, the audible expression of all that is exultant, ruthless, and virile--Noise which alone defends us from silly qualms, despairing scruples, and impossible desires. We will make the whole universe a noise in the end. We have already made great strides in this direction as regards the Earth. The melodies and silences of Heaven will be shouted down in the end. But I admit we are not yet loud enough, or anything like it. Research is in progress."

C.S. LEWIS
The Screwtape Letters

        You whom the Holy Spirit is urging to act that your souls may become the Bride of God, must….”sit alone and keep silence” as the prophet says…. Get away then I tell you, not physically but in mind and intention, in spirit and devotion; for the Lord Christ is Himself a Spirit, and it is spiritual solitude that He requires of you, though bodily withdrawal is not without its uses, when it may be had, especially in a time of prayer.  You have His own commandment in the matter, “When you pray, enter into your room and when you have shut the door, pray.”  He, Himself practiced what He preached. He would spend all night in prayer, not only hiding from the crowds, but not allowing any even of His closest friends to come with Him.  Even at the last, when He was hastening to His willing death, though He had taken three with Him, He withdrew even from them when He desired to pray.  You must do likewise, when you want to pray.
        He who would pray must choose the best time to do so as well as the best place.  A time of leisure is the fittest and most suitable, especially the silence of the night; for prayer is freer in the night and purer too.   How confidently does prayer mount up, unknown to any except God and the holy angel who receives it on the heavenly altar! How acceptable and clear it is in its modesty then, how peaceful and serene with no noise or interruption to disturb it!

 BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX
 1090-1153
 On Loving God

"A man’s will should be an echo, not a voice; the echo of God..." Devotional on Silence before God

My soul, wait silently for God alone,

For my hope is from Him.

Psalm 62:5

Come, my people, enter into your rooms,

And shut your doors behind you;

Hide yourself, as it were, for a little moment…

Isaiah 26:20

“But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly.”

Matthew 6:6

That silence is first a silence of the will. The plain meaning of this phrase is resignation; and resignation is just a silent will. Before the throne of the Great King, His servants are to stand like those long rows of attendants we see on the walls of Eastern temples, silent, with folded arms, straining their ears to hear, and bracing their muscles to execute his whispered commands, or even his gesture and his glance. A man’s will should be an echo, not a voice; the echo of God, not the voice of self. It should be silent, as some sweet instrument is silent till the owner’s hand touches the keys. Like the boy-prophet in the hush of the sanctuary, below the quivering light of the dying lamps, we should wait till the awful voice calls, and then answer, ‘Speak, Lord! for Thy servant heareth.’ Do not let the loud utterances of your own wills anticipate, nor drown, the still, small voice in which God speaks. Bridle impatience till He does. If you cannot hear His whisper, wait till you do. Take care of running before you are sent. Keep your wills in equipoise till God’s hand gives the impulse and direction.

         Such a silent will is a strong will. It is no feeble passiveness, no dead indifference, no impossible abnegation that God requires, when He requires us to put our wills in accord with His. They are not slain, but vivified, by such surrender; and the true secret of strength lies in submission. The secret of blessedness is there, too, for our sorrows come because there is discord between our circumstances and our wills, and the measure in which these are in harmony with God is the measure in which we shall feel that all things are blessings to be received with thanksgiving. But if we will take our own way, and let our own wills speak before God speaks, or otherwise than God speaks, nothing can come of that but what always has come of it—blunders, sins, misery, and manifold ruin.

We must keep our hearts silent too. The sweet voices of pleading affections, the loud cry of desires and instincts that roar for their food like beasts of prey, the querulous complaints of disappointed hopes, the groans and sobs of black-robed sorrows, the loud hubbub and Babel, like the noise of a great city, that every man carries within, must be stifled and coerced into silence. We have to take the animal in us by the throat, and sternly say, ‘Lie down there and be quiet.’ We have to stop our ears to the noises around, however sweet the songs, and to close many an avenue through which the world’s music might steal in. He cannot say, ‘My soul is silent unto God,’ whose whole being is buzzing with vanities and noisy with the din of the marketplace. Unless we have something, at least, of that great stillness, our hearts will have no peace, and our religion no reality.

            As the flowers follow the sun, and silently hold up their petals to be tinted and enlarged by his shining, so must we, if we would know the joy of God, hold our souls, wills, hearts, and minds still before Him, whose voice commands, whose love warms, whose truth makes fair, our whole being. God speaks for the most part in such silence only. If the soul be full of tumult and jangling noises, His voice is little likely to be heard. It is the calm lake which mirrors the sun, the least cat’s-paw wrinkling the surface wipes out all the reflected glories of the heavens. If we would mirror God our souls must be calm. If we would hear God our souls must be silence.

         The silence of the soul before God is no mere passiveness. It requires the intensest energy of all our being to keep all our being still and waiting upon Him. So put all your strength into the task, and be sure that your soul is never so intensely alive as when in deepest abnegation it waits hushed before God.

ALEXANDER MACLAREN

Expositions of Holy Scripture

SILENCE TO GOD ~Psalm 62