"Silence, all mankind, in the presence of the Lord!"

Zechariah 2:17

It is always just a click away. Right there within reach, so accessible and you do not even have to burn a calorie to make it happen. But it can be so dangerous to your interior health. What is this "click"? It is the click to noise. The remote control or power-on buttons to the TV, radio, computer, etc.

After a noisy-filled time and our noisy-filled world, a person comes home and everybody is gone from the house for a few hours. There is a chance for the most loving and defining voice to get through the voice of our maker, savior, friend and sanctifier. Will this person welcome that voice or will it be shunned by further noise which drowns it out? Quickly, the person "clicks" on the noise. The TV is blurting out incessant, cheap words. Why the "click"? Perhaps the person does not like to spend time with someone they do not love (i.e. themselves).

There is the story of the harried businessman whose family, job and life is falling apart. He has no peace and happiness and he clearly needs help. He decides to visit a desert monk and seek his wisdom. After sharing his troubles with him, the monk excuses himself and tells the man he will be back shortly. A few minutes go by and the monk returns with a basin full of water. He tells the man to look at the swirling water and asks him what he can see. Of course everything is blurry. Finally, the water stills and the monk has him look at it again. Now, he can clearly see himself.

It is only in silence that we can clearly see who we are. For many of us, we just keep clicking on the noise and our lives become a blur of confusion. The defining love of Jesus cannot get through. If his love is constantly squashed out, we will never come to know the love that defines each moment of our existence. Our lives are incomprehensible without Jesus only he who can show us who we are. Until the swirling waters are transformed into calm, we cannot get an accurate picture of ourselves.

Silence!

Practice silence each day. Turn off the radio in the car and pray. Pray in silence without distraction. Mandate it in your household. Spend time together as a family in silence each day maybe meditating on a scripture or examining your lives together and how you are treating one another or think about where you have seen God in your day, how blessed and thankful you are. Then share the fruits of your silence with each other.

Let the waters still and the loving voice that defines everything, define you.

+Fr. John

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