Silence.  There are so many connotations of the word, but have you noticed that they all seem to convey a sense of fragility?  Silence does not simply end; it is shattered or broken.  It doesn’t just occur, it is held or maintained.  Silence is something precious, golden, valuable.  It can be humble and comforting, like the quiet of a night at home.  It can also be grand and intimidating, like entering an ancient and prestigious library or museum.  But silence is complicated, tricky.  It can be companionable, communicating a sense of understanding that is deeper than words.  But it can also be terrifying, seeming to highlight your fears and questions, bringing them to light simply by erasing the noises that once obscured them.    

It is something that is both sought after and resolutely avoided.  People travel the world in search of it, wandering to the far reaches of the earth just to hide from the noise of life.  They pay thousands of dollars to get away from the life that they have put themselves in debt to create.  But are we running from the noise that surrounds us or aching for the stillness inside that we know once existed but somehow has been lost?  When watching the sun set in the mountains, is it the quiet that surrounds you that is so calming, or is it your own stillness that soothes your soul? 

A few people spend their life pursuing silence and the peace that they hope will come with it.  Others content themselves with brief exposures to it, like a swimmer coming up for a gasping breath before plunging back underwater to continue his struggle against the current.  But most of us spend our time desperately avoiding it, drowning it before it can have a chance to point out what we don’t want to know about ourselves.  We do our best to ignore it, to push it away, because what we keep stored away in the silence are the tears we won’t let ourselves cry, the questions that have no answers, the problems with the solutions that we can’t bring ourselves to accept.  To let silence have a place in our lives would also mean opening our minds and souls to everything we have tried to bury. 

There are an infinite number of things you can do in this life, but a very limited number of them are truly worth doing.  Those that are worth it require so much more than most people are willing to give.  Time, discipline, effort, sacrifice, pain, honesty.  Being able to spend time in silence is one of those things.  And I don’t mean ten minutes of quiet reading, or not having the music on while you clean the house or drive to work.  I mean devoting all of your focus to being silent for a substantial amount of time and facing what that produces.  For me, one of the most impressive things that can be accomplished is for a person to spend time alone with the silence of his soul… and come out smiling.