Silver Speech, Golden Silence

It was a good weekend – family gatherings, meeting up with friends, watching TV sport, going to church… There were conversations, laughter, shouting at the referee, cheering the winners, cheerful chit-chat, serious discussions, drums, guitars, singing… All good, but there was lots of noise!

There were also good quiet times alone – walking alone along the beach in the early morning… in the garden, battling with weeds and tidying the lawn … reading, reflecting, praying…

Mr Google pointed me to the English writer Thomas Carlyle who in 1831 expounds the virtues of silence:

‘Silence is the element in which great things fashion themselves together; that at length they may emerge, full-formed and majestic, into the daylight of Life…’ He concludes, translating a German phrase: ‘’Speech is silvern, Silence is golden’; or as I might rather express it: Speech is of Time, Silence is of Eternity.’

Musing on silence:

…Mr Google also pointed me to a no longer used 16th century proverb: ‘Silence is a woman’s best garment.’ I could get myself into a lot of trouble in using this saying. What I might consider humorous others might see as entirely inappropriate!

…Silence is a garment that I intentionally clothe myself in, my ‘best garment’.

…Mark, preaching yesterday morning, quoted ‘Alice Through the Looking Glass’. Alice says: ‘…one CAN’T believe impossible things.’ The White Queen replies: ‘I daresay you haven’t had much practice… When I was your age, I always did it for half-an-hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.’

…Silence is an opportunity to think creatively, challenge the accepted, dream the impossible.

…Reminded again this morning: the risen Jesus appears to Mary in the garden. There’s no grand entrance with noisy fanfare, no great reveal in front of thousands, no joyful conversation with important leaders. It’s to a single, apparently unimportant woman in the silence of a garden at dawn.

…Silence is a place where I encounter the Divine, and hear Him speaking to me personally.