Silence: Reading the Poetry of Family Life

My husband inspires our family with his disposition to silence -- he usually listens and considers before speaking. Sometimes, even with urgent matters, he waits until later to comment, after prayer and reflection. Silence can be surprisingly fruitful in its revelations. 

In "The Postscript," Seamus Heaney describes a County Clare shoreline where "the wind and the light are working off of each other." But, he concludes, 

"You are neither here nor there, 

A hurry through which known and strange things pass 

As big soft buffetings come at the car sideways 

And catch the heart off guard and blow it open." 

It is Heaney's awe-filled silent observance that discovers nature's unity in the beautiful dance of wind and light, and all the participating vibrant elements. I thought of my husband's quiet example when reading this poem and pondering family dynamics. So often, dominated by "the dictatorship of noise," but with a sincere attitude of selflessness for the family, I am "neither here nor there," hurrying, ignoring windy buffets to the heart ... instead of contemplating the light of God's ever-present love and how it invites, informs, and unifies. 

A dear friend once counseled, "Listening is silence. Silence is not a lack of noise, but a Presence." When we enter into silence, wounds may arise clamorously, but they are met with the healing balm of his presence. Transformative mercy emanates from our open-hearted abandonment to a friendship with Christ, that place of light-filled silence which listens -- and speaks.