A Peaceful Lent 🌿 Silence

A Peaceful Lent: Silence

Elijah, prophet of God, lives a somewhat turbulent life.  His story comes to us as a great roller coaster ride; he climbs the heady heights of the miraculous, only to plunge back down to the depths of despair. God takes care of his prophet, feeding him and restoring him spectacularly. After all, who can sustain such a life in the midst of sleep deprivation and an empty stomach?
  After one such cycle of victory and despair, God calls Elijah to stand before him and voice his complaint. Before God responds, the natural environment makes its voice heard. There is a wind, strong enough to break rocks, a powerful earthquake, a raging fire. But God does not speak. Then, finally, comes the sound of a low whisper. Elijah gathers himself to listen to the still, small voice. It is the voice of God.   ///  
This is what I know about silence: it can be hard. In silence, those things we try to push away, numb or ignore have a habit of resurfacing. Painful memories, unhealed wounds, things I don’t like about myself. Silence gives voice to my fears and anxieties. It reminds me of all my mistakes; all the ways I am messy and broken. It leaves my mind feeling vulnerable and exposed. So mostly I try to avoid the quiet. I have music on, listen to podcasts, watch Netflix. I go to bed with an audio book and wake up to the radio. Anything to distract the voices in my head; anything to avoid the painful feelings.
 
The problem is, our emotions ‘leak’ as Pete Scazzero puts it. If I don’t deal with how I’m feeling, if I don’t face my wounds, it comes out in other ways. It shows up as insecurity, a bad attitude, hurtful comments. It gets expressed as shame, isolation and fear. It becomes toxic to me and those around me.
  ///  
I wonder about that story of Elijah. Why all those natural disasters before God speaks? They are not the voice of God, so what purpose do they serve? I wonder if they might be a mirror for Elijah’s feelings. Perhaps they allow him to express his pent-up fury and fear. What if, in the wind, the earthquake and the fire, God is validating Elijah’s emotions and giving him space to process them?
 
What if he gives that same space to us?
 
When we sit with silence, emotional upheaval often surfaces first. The hurricane, the earthquake, the fire. But if we can find the courage to stay with it, silence gives us the opportunity to express our emotions before God, whose love and grace are wide enough to hold all our feelings. And as we continue to stay with it, those feelings eventually give way to the whisper; the still, small voice that calls us by name; the voice that calls us beloved; the voice that calls us home.
 
Silence is an invitation to walk towards wholeness and to do the work of healing. It is not easy, and as Phileena Heuertz writes, ‘we have any number of escape routes from pain, but the path of transformation is learning how to be with the pain, so new life can emerge in and through us.’
 
Practice
 Think about where you might be able to create space for silence.
A car journey with no music?
A walk with no podcast?
Turning Netflix off for a set period of time each day?
 
As emotions begin to surface, allow yourself to feel them and talk with God about them.
Don’t rush away from this too soon.
Then take some time to be quiet and listen for the whisper of God’s voice. Remember his voice is loving and kind.
It might help to journal through this process.
 
Scriptures to meditate on:
 
I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother, like a child is my soul within me. Psalm 131:2
 
There is a time to keep silence, and a time to speak. Ecclesiastes 3:7
 
How precious to me are Your thoughts, O God,
how vast is their sum!
If I were to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand;
when I awake, I am still with You. Psalm 139: 17-18




This is the second part in a three part series. If you missed the first post,