I believe most of us have had conscious encounters with the Divine. Though they are impossible to put into words, it is helpful to try. After all, we are thinking beings, and our capacity to express ourselves in words is part of what makes us human. So, perhaps the greatest paradox of all is that God can be encountered as the Great Silence. This silence is not the same thing as being quiet. It embodies an endless depth, an unbounded fullness, the very Beingness of God. The Great Silence literally silences us, and all mental constructs necessarily fall away. Stripped of our ideologies, we are naked in the presence of God and thus allow God to take possession of us. In these moments, our sense of where we end and God begins becomes a very blurred line. We cannot make the Great Silence happen because it comes to us as a gift, as a grace. However, every prayer, every meditation, and every act of selfless love prepares us for its inevitable blossoming. As Valentin Tomberg tells us, the Great Silence makes a difference in our everyday affairs: “This zone of silence being once established, you can draw from it for both rest and work.”
Divine God,
You order the universe,
Yet you silently
And humbly wait
Until I am willing
And ready to remain quiet.
