Shut Up
Holy Silence is anathema.
- This post was written entirely from the brain and heart of a real, flesh-and-blood, ensouled human being, with zero ideas, input or editing from AI. All artwork is credited to the original, human creators. I will never willingly outsource my brain to AI. EVER. -
Dear friend,
I don’t have a plan with this post. I didn’t even draft it on pencil and paper this time.
But I read a post by Josh Nadeau and now the thoughts are tumbling into and out of my brain faster than my fingers can spasm across the keyboard and I need to get this down before I explode.
Again.
So:
The Terror of Silence
We have forgotten how to be silent and still.
More than that: we’re terrified of it.
When was the last time you - yes, you, Ted, Connor, Sam, Hannah (you know who you are) sat alone, quiet, in a dark room, for an hour, as Pascal once said humanity was incapable of doing?
Or even for five minutes?
Our society’s very infrastructure forbids it. We always have noise buzzing in our ears. “Background” music, YouTube, podcasts, even the radio. Also, of course, attention-fragmenting pings from our little nightmare bricks.
And even if you turn all that off…you have the air conditioner. The lawn company mowing your neighbor’s lawn (as opposed to your neighbor mowing it himself). The incessant hum of the nearby highway at all hours of the day and night.
And even if you somehow managed to turn all that off…within the next two to ten minutes a plane will come roaring overhead.
It is incredibly difficult, in the Year of Our Lord 2025, to escape the noise. Even if we wanted to. We’re enslaved to what Charlotte Mason calls the “tyranny of the urgent.”
I realized how addicted to noise and terrified of silence our culture is just a few minutes ago. When midway through reading Josh’s post, I heard a male voice talking from somewhere in the relatively quiet air of our house. I realized it was the radio in my parents’ bedroom. Jabbering away with nobody in the room. Left as background noise on the off chance that someone enter the room and God forbid there be nothing to stimulate the eardrums.
A radio playing in an empty room with nobody to hear it.
That struck me, at least, as incredibly dystopian. Chilling. Anti-Good.
I leaped off my bed, walked into the master bedroom, and turned the radio off. Much better for reading and writing. Harder to deal with the planes, though.
The thing is, our culture is so damn loud, so damn distracting, all the lines got blurred. I was always consuming, always collecting, always listening to something as some way to not listen to something else.
My prayer time became app based, bible reading was audio, too; and my study was YouTube lectures. Always listening, always thinking, always fidgeting.
Like I said before, it revealed more about me than I ever wanted to admit.
Our culture doesn’t permit us to be undistracted, unstimulated. Because when we’re sitting quietly alone in a dark room for an hour, we’re not consuming and hence not purchasing.
Even when we think we’re not consuming, we are. Usage of phone requires usage of cellular data that someone somewhere had to pay money for. Even YouTube isn’t free.
But making ourselves be still, quiet, and alone with only God and our thoughts costs $0.00. In this economy, that’s a steal.
So why don’t we do it more often?
What does our constant need to consume, to hear (as opposed to listen), to see (as opposed to giving attention), say about us?
If you were to take Pascal’s advice…what would the silence reveal to you about yourself?
Your desires?
Your priorities?
Your sin?
We’re always staring at our black mirrors because we’d do just about anything to avoid looking in the mirror that God holds up to our souls.
I think it’s because, if we really looked in that mirror, we’d see the fear of God before our eyes (Ps. 36:1).
With nothing to distract us, we’d eventually come to a confrontation with all our failures. Inadequacies. Shame. Sin. We’d become uncomfortable. We’d feel bad. And to the modern world, feeling bad is just about the worst possible thing that could ever happen to someone. So we block it out. We avoid beholding ourselves - and God.
Come to think of it…this is a form of Pharisaism. Focusing on the external to the neglect of the internal. We know what Jesus had to say to the Pharisees.
I’m as culpable as anyone. So often, I feel like Paul in Rom. 7:19 “For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.” Being comfortable with discomfort is almost a foreign concept now. It’s physically hard to put down the phone, close the laptop, turn off the music, and just be. Even when I try to write, I sometimes put YouTube music playlists on to give my ears something to take in while my mind and hands pour out. Sometimes it genuinely helps the “creative flow”.
Sometimes it’s just another distraction. Another little piece of my mind, fragmented.
In 2013, Dr. Edward Sri authored a sensational article titled “My iPhone, My Precious.”1 He likened the increasingly ubiquitous smartphone to the One Ring in Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy, an object of evil power that addicted, enslaved and corrupted anyone who possessed it. While Tolkien hated allegory, the application remains.
I’m not (completely) against technology. Although I do hold a heavy dose of skepticism towards it. But plenty of other things can become a One Ring to each of us. Technology, in my opinion, just magnifies this addiction a hundred-fold.
My point with this brief tangent is this: just as it was physically painful to relinquish the One Ring (it grew so heavy), so we struggle with silencing the noise and just shutting up. Sometimes it feels like dying. My brain chemistry doesn’t like it. Even sitting still with my gadgets in another room and letting quietness reign…I start to fidget after two minutes. My mind races.
We don’t want to behold our own sinful selves. We’d rather do just about anything else than that.
That’s why silent stillness is terrifying.
But it is essential nonetheless.
Why?
Well, Josh hints at the answer:
Contemplation is food for the creative life.
…If you can’t find peace in the quiet, you’re gonna burn out.
Imperative: Be Still
Contemplation is necessary for all human beings. Not just Christians. If we don’t aggressively fight distractions and pursue moments of slowness, we will crash and burn. We simply were not designed for constant stimulation and perpetual distraction.
The mere existence of a sunset, a tree, a baby, makes that fact abundantly clear. Humans were designed to grow slowly.
Popular culture understands a shadow of this essential (from Greek ousia "being, essence, existence") truth. Social media is awash with tips for meditation, detoxing, mindfulness, “monk mode” and more.
But as Christians, who have the Way and the Truth and the Life in Jesus…we have the inside scoop.
It’s not so that we can “recharge our batteries” or be more efficient at work or even engage in “self-care”. No, it’s greater than that. It’s outside ourselves.
It’s Holy Silence.
The monks in the falsely named “Dark Ages” understood what that meant. The Rule of St. Benedict included mandatory periods of rest, silence and contemplation in addition to work, food and fellowship. Ora et Labora. The ascetics got this too, going days or longer without even food sometimes to eliminate distractions and behold the Divine. The goal in both cases was greater communion with God. Becoming one with Him. More like Christ. Bearing the Image. Having True Life.
That’s the thing about Holy Silence, though: it requires us to let go of ourselves. We must lay down our striving, our sense of self-sufficiency and come to God in complete surrender. Fasting from the immediate to feast on the eternal.
I recently read a devotional called “God Guides” by Mary Geegh, a missionary in India. She spoke about this idea of Holy Silence, describing how she learned to “be still and wait on the Lord. Listen for His guidance.” She presented four steps (I hate even calling them that, as if it’s a systematic, controllable process) for cultivating peace in the quiet.
Sit alone and be still. Wait for the Lord.
Be definite about your sins.
Write down, with pencil and paper, what the Holy Spirit speaks to your soul.
Share with others what the Lord has revealed or convicted you, that they may be encouraged in their own faith.
I found this devotional immensely helpful. Geegh emphasized that we must rely on God and relinquish our own efforts. Releasing all our distractions and trusting the Lord to give us what He knows we need, in His own perfect timing.
That’s incredibly difficult no matter when you lived, let alone in our increasingly technocratic world.
But it remains no less crucial.
God made creation in six days and rested on the seventh. He spoke to Elijah in a still, small voice. He came to earth as a helpless newborn baby who had to grow up. He tells us again and again, “Be still and know that I am God.” That’s not just a suggestion or a request; it’s a command.
The Lord values slowness, stillness and silence over efficiency, stimulation and noise.
And the good news: He doesn’t just tell us to perform this terrifying act and leave us to do it alone in our own strength.
He has given us His Holy Spirit, the Giver of Life, for every second of our existence as followers of Christ. He promises to help us, and His promises are trustworthy and true We’re not left alone.
Now more than ever, we must practice silence and stillness. We must confront our own ugly sin, yes, but not so that we can wallow in shame and despair. No, it’s so we can die to ourselves and live to Christ. Confess our sin and receive our Comforter’s forgiveness and grace to move forward.
Our Good Shepherd leads us beside quiet waters.
In so doing, He restores our souls.
Get rid of the distractions. Dismiss your excuses. Rather:
“But seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you as well.” -Matthew 6:33
-Laura
It’s a short read but even more eerily prescient today than in 2013.
There is a long Christian history of meditation practice, first with the Desert Mothers and then centuries later with the Brethren of the Common Life and Loyola's thought exercises.