Devotional

Silence

Reb Saunders recognized his son's genius as young as age 4.  Such a mind could run rampant swallowing up the knowledge and the ways of the world.  Books were like manna (bread) to Danny Saunders.  Eating rotten bread could be a detriment to his soul, so to encourage Danny to look inside himself and to develop a heart of compassion for the people he would eventually lead as their rabbi; the father raised the son in silence.  Casual conversations between father and son were forbidden.  Their only discourse occurred as they met to study Talmud each day.

In response to his friend, Reveun's, constant questioning and dislike of the silent treatment between Danny and Reb Saunders, Danny finally responded, "You can listen to silence, Reuven.  I've begun to realize that you can listen to silence and learn from it.  It has a quality and a dimension all its own.  It talks to me sometimes.  I feel myself alive in it.  It talks.  And I can hear it" (Potok, Chiam, The Chosen, p. 249).

Although raising a child in silence was a fictional practice created by Potok, there is a pearl of wisdom that we, as Christians, can take away from this.  Sequestering ourselves from the world for a half hour, a day, or a week of silent retreat can bring us closer to God.  For us that would mean turning off all electronic devices and finding a place where we can practice solitude.  When Potok's character, Danny, speaks of "it" talking to him in reference to the silence, I would insert the word "God" or "Holy Spirit".  Taking time to retreat from the world makes room for the Spirit of God to have all of our attention.

Danny Saunder's goes on to say, "You have to want to listen to it, and then you can hear it.  It has a strange, beautiful texture.  It doesn't always talk.  Sometime-sometimes it cries, and you can hear the pain of the world in it.  It hurts to listen to it then.  But you have to."

In my moments of silence, the Lord has brought to mind the lives that have been snuffed out by abortion and the women who suffer with their decision.  I sense the unbearable pain of the children forced into sex trafficking and the horrendous acts performed against them in the name of erotic pleasure.  I hear the desperation of the homeless in my city huddled under the bridges or in makeshift camps trying to escape the cold and hunger.  And, I feel the deep sadness of the boy soldiers in Africa who are captured and then forced into drugs so that they can kill their own people under the terror of civil war.  I can feel the pain that Jesus feels as he witnesses the evil.  My heart breaks.  God speaks to me and leads me in prayer.  In the practice of silence, I hear God.

Today's Christians are so bombarded with busyness, IPods, IPads, IPhones, computers and 24 hour television programming that we have lost the art of listening in the quiet to develop our souls.  It is time to stop our worlds for a brief time and restore our connection to God.

Eccles. 3:7  A time to be silent and a time to speak