How to enter the silence needed to hear God
Sunday was a beautiful Fall day. I sat outside to pray in solitude and silence. I gazed upon the trees around the lake, soaked up the beauty of the blue sky, and felt the cool Autumn breeze on my sun-warmed skin. All the conditions were perfect to hear God speaking into my heart.
Then my wife cranked up the leaf blower. I’m not complaining. She is saving me time, and acts of service are one of my love languages. But it took a few minutes to mentally convert leaf-blower noise into background white noise and reenter the silence. Then the cat, who loves to pray with me, jumped up on the table and started swirling around the laptop. This was a noise of a different type. Movement and distraction. I gently set the cat on the ground. After dispatching the cat, I faintly heard my dog inside. Though he wasn’t loud, I knew he was upset from being stuck inside when everyone else was outside. This was a noise of a third type, an internal disquiet. I let him out.
In his classic work on Carmelite Spirituality, I want to see God (1953),Fr. Marie-Eugene said there are three types of silences:
- Exterior Silence
- Silence of activity
- Interior silence
In my moment of peace, all three were disturbed: the external noise of the leaf blower, the restlessness of the cat, and the inner angst I felt for my dog.
Mother Teresa said, “We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness.” (Something Beautiful for God, Muggeridge) The “noise” Mother refers to could be external or internal. The “restlessness” could be an overabundance of activity or a mind thinking about the next thing to do. She then describes the silence for which all should strive. “God is the friend of silence. See how nature—trees, flowers, grass—grows in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence.”
Saint Teresa of Avila was not immune to these ‘noises’. She writes in her autobiography, “At times, I find myself unable to engage in prayer… the noises in my head are so loud that I am beginning to wonder what is going with it.” Sounds familiar!
Having experienced noise and restlessness herself, she gave this advice to her sisters: “When one will finds herself in the state of [dis]quiet, it must take no more notice that it would of a mad man… When the thoughts wander off after the most ridiculous thing, she should laugh at it and treat it as the silly thing it is, and return to her state of quiet.” (The Way of Perfection)
I tuned out the leaf blower, dispatched the cat, and let out the dog. I returned to my time of silent contemplation. A moment later, my wife decided to blow the leaves under my chair and table. I followed Teresa of Avila’s advice: I laughed. God may be a friend of silence, but has a sense of humor too.
