The Sound of Silence

When the prophet Elijah was running away from Ahab and Jezebel, he hid in a cave. There he listened for God in an earthquake, in a mighty wind, and in fire but heard nothing. It was in the “sound of sheer silence” (I Kings 19:11-14 NRSV) that he finally met God. Sound of sheer silence was the demanding voice of God. Elijah was willing to oblige, for he was very zealous. I have thought a lot about this passage. Maybe because I am fascinated with the power of language. Maybe because I remember Paul Simon’s lyrics “people talking without speaking, people hearing without listening, people writing songs that voices never share and no one dare disturb the sound of silence.” Maybe there is a hunger not to be distracted by noise and to enter into the mystery of divine presence.

In his poetic eulogy, The World of Silence, Philosopher Max Picard says that silence is the central place of faith, where we give the Word back to the God from whom we first received it. When we run out of words, then and perhaps only then, can God be God.

Through the experience of God’s silence in scripture and in our own lives, we may be able to open up the possibility that silence is as much a sign of God’s presence as of God’s absence—that divine silence is not a vacuum to be filled but a mystery to be entered into…a holy of holies…in which we too may know the power of God.