005: Without Words

February 20, 2010
Job 2:13, Lamentations 3:26

Silence.

It reminds me of staring at a blank white screen on my computer with a blinking curser. I usually think of silence as being empty, expectant, lonely, and sometimes awkward.

Why?

I was talking to a student yesterday morning. He was already in class when I came in at 7:35AM. He mentioned that he loves to arrive early before the 8AM start time so he can sit in the quiet. “It’s so silent,” he said, “It’s the most peaceful part of my day.”

He’s referring to the fact that there are no words around him, because there is noise. There’s the noise of a solitary pair of high heels clicking down the hall, and there’s the noise of the occasional door opening or shutting in the building. There’s even an annoying humming/buzzing sound from the air ventilation, but there aren’t people’s voices.

I like silence. I agree with him, it’s very peaceful to be surrounded by a lack of words. When I wrote papers or read through my three-foot tall stack of English Literature each semester in college, I had to find quiet places to study. I can’t focus on words on a page if there are understandable words in the air around me.

My friend Jordan told me last Fall that I might be served well by sitting in silence. He had heard me talk and rattle on as I verbally processed thoughts and analyses and asked questions and then answered them myself. “Dani, just stop,” he said, “You run around and around in your head, but maybe you need to just be still. Be silent. Pray your prayers in writing in a journal – a BIG journal – and then sit quietly and listen.” Perhaps Jordi’s words got sucked into my whirrling brain because my best friend Bri had said almost the same thing just a few days prior, “Dani, can you please stop? Just stop. Stop trying to figure all this out and just let some of it be.”

I’m a fixer. When there is an idea or a thought that doesn’t seem to be complete, I want to fix that. I want to solve it. Which is OK, but God’s the Master fixer. I need to make sure my fixing-propensities are being directed by Him.

I’ve been reading in Job for a couple mornings now, and I’m not sure I even begin to grasp all of it. But I love looking for little details in the Bible. Job’s three friends were kind of jerks, but they did get a couple things right. They came to Job – an effort to comfort him in his pain – and they sat down in silence with him for a week (then they said stupid things, but that came later...).

A week! How many of us can be silent – either with someone or by ourselves - for a day? For an hour? For a few minutes? But silence can be comforting and healing. Even when it’s agonizing.

Maybe I should work more on being quiet… on being silent… on being still.