Listen in the silence....

Our silence makes listening possible...

I cry aloud, but He in silence gives more instruction. (Augustine)  God may be speaking most clearly precisely when we have finally stopped supplying all the words.

Benedict begins with the Psalmist: I have resolved to keep watch over my ways that I may never sin with my tongue. The Desert Fathers understood why. They knew that the tongue easily becomes the servant of the ego—defending itself, displaying itself, judging others, filling every silence with its own importance.

But Benedictine silence is not simply not talking. Cassian knew that even silence can wound when it becomes cold, passive-aggressive, or indifferent to another's need. Augustine understood the same paradox: there are times when we sin by speaking, but there are also times when we sin by refusing to speak.

The answer is not to be mute. The answer is listening.

Before the tongue speaks, the heart must become quiet enough to hear. We listen for God. We listen to the person standing before us. We listen to the accumulated wisdom of the community. And perhaps most difficult of all, we listen carefully enough to recognize the voice of our own ego masquerading as wisdom.

My own noise all too easily drowns out the voice of God. I become occupied with what I want to say next rather than with what another person is saying now. At that moment , there is no room left for another person's experience, another person's wisdom, another person's truth.

When speech becomes unrestrained and gossip becomes the food of the soul,
the destruction of community cannot be far behind. (Sr. Joan)

Silence creates space — space for another, space for reflection, space for peace, space for God.

The disciple asks, How am I to listen?

Listen until the need to impose yourself grows quiet.
Listen until another person can finish.
Listen until God's whisper becomes louder than your own voice.

Perhaps that is the Benedictine discipline of silence — not, learning how not to speak, but learning when a word comes from God — and when it comes only from ourselves.