The Sound of Silence

An amazing thing about scuba diving is the immense quiet of the subterranean world. As you descend the only sound you hear is the sound of your breath in your regulator. Breath in. Breathe out. On a coral reef there is lots of activity as the fish race back and forth and the sea fans and soft corals wave in the current, but by and large what characterizes the dive is not the movement but the quintessential quality of silence. Perhaps I enjoy diving because I enjoy the quiet? Descending into the deep blue into a silent underwater world. (I imagine a spacewalk is a similar experience as one enters a dark and silent void).

Contrastingly, Henri Nouwen talks about “our wordy world” and the challenge to engage silence in a marketing climate full of endless word crafting. In his slender volume Un Grito En Busca de Misericordia (A Cry For Mercy) he writes, “It is very difficult to be silent, a silence with my mouth and even more a silence in my heart” (my translation from the Spanish text). He goes on to say that he experiences so much internal chatter in the way of interior debates with his friends, enemies, opponents, colleagues, and rivals. He concludes by saying that these internal discussions demonstrate his own insecurity, fear, apprehension, and a necessity to be recognized and receive attention.

I appreciate Nouwen’s honesty as it reflects my own struggle to live calmly in a wordy and tumultuous world. So many words and so many hurts. How difficult to live peacefully and generously with others who see the world so differently than I do. I think my underwater friends have it better in this respect—they don’t have to listen to the incessant yattering, complaining, controlling, self-serving speech so common in our superaqueous world.

I took this photo overlooking the waters of Sandbanks Provincial Park:

Three trees overlooking a frozen lake.

Not a soul in sight.

Not a word to be heard.

An “apophatic” world where silence, stillness, and serenity exist. And all subsequent speech flows from a peaceful (and not a fearful) mind and heart.