I talk a lot.
Teaching.
Preaching.
Committes.
Conversations.
On the phone.
In the coffee queue.
As Merton said, "Words are the sounds that interrupt my silence."
In Christian discipleship, much emphasis is put today on doing, acting, performing, embodying. And yes there is a kind of passivity that is either laziness or boredom with this whole Christian thing. If you've never felt it you're lucky. It isn't loss of love so much as loss of vision, energy and inward motive which together add up to desire for God.
So I welcome the wise words of Philip Toynbee in his unjustly forgotten, even if dated Journal, Part of a Journey.
"To silence the mind is not enough. it has to be a listening silence. Very hard to get there; harder still to stay there."
Yes that's true. And it may be that the word discipleship has become a legalistic doing word, an abstract noun given content by action. Whereas to be a disciple is describing word, a statement of being, a follower, one who has made a commitment in to a relationship.
And relationships need time, communication, and the deepest relationships, communion. A listening silence pays the other the courtesy of attention, hearing and response - all of which are born in silence.
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