Category: SILENCE

  • If you find yourself in the company of people conversing about either worldly or spiritual matters, give the impression that you too are contributing something, while saying nothing that harms the soul. Bear in mind that you should avoid their praises, lest you appear to them to be silent and are later burdened by this. However, even if you do this, make sure that you do not condemn them as speaking much, simply because you are saying little. For you do not know whether what will burden you will actually be the one word that you have spoken rather than the many words that they have spoken.

    “Other Old Man” John, Letters From The Desert: A Selection of Questions and Responses (St. Vladimir’s Seminary Press Popular Patristics Series)

  • In a short time, a man can cut off ten such desires. He takes a little walk and sees something. His thoughts say to him, ‘Go over there and investigate,’ and he says to his thoughts, ‘No!  I won’t,’ and he cuts off his desire. Again, he finds someone gossiping, and his thoughts say to him, ‘You go and have a word with them,’ and he cuts off his desires and does not speak. Or again his thoughts say to him, ‘Go up and ask the cook what’s cooking?’ and he does not go, but cuts off his desire. Then he sees something else, and his thoughts say to him, ‘Go down and ask, who brought it?’ and he does not ask. A man denying himself in this way comes little by little to form a habit of it, so that from denying himself in little things, he begins to deny himself in great without the least trouble. Finally, he comes not have any of these extraneous desires, but whatever happens to him he is satisfied with it, as if it were the very thing he wanted. And so, not desiring to satisfy his own desires, he finds himself always doing what he wants to. For not having his own special fancies, he fancies every single thing that happens to him. Thus, he is found, as we said, to be without special attachments, and from this state of tranquility he comes to the state of holy indifference.

    —Dorotheos of Gaza, Discourses and Sayings

  • A Smile, A Gaze…

    Love without limits employs the simplest means to establish contact between persons. Words are not needed. If they are pure and true, a smile or a gaze will suffice.

    A smile, a gaze… Two means of infinite expression: a deep and silent expression of ourselves. Thereby a communion is created with those to whom we may never speak a word or whom we may never see again.

    Whether or not you are known to me, I look at each of you attentively—you whom God has placed on my pathway. Silently, and in my presence, God makes of you living souls. He makes you present to me. In your eyes I behold your soul, just as my gaze conveys my soul to you.

    We can, then, become immersed in other persons: “I am in you and you in me.” Between us there grows a living communion. Its heart, its ultimate fulfillment, is the Face of God, that Face we behold through the transparency of each other’s faces.

    We smile at each other. That smile relaxes lips that previously were closed. It opens teeth that before were tightly clenched. A door has opened. Something has begun between us, something whose future we leave entirely in the hands of God.

    You who have given me today a smile or a gaze that is both pure and true, and who have received from me a smile or gaze, pure and true (I stress these words, “pure and true”): I bless you in silence.

    I pray to the Lord of Love that the wordless meeting of our souls will allow a brilliant light to illumine this day!

    —Lev Gillet, Love Without Limits

  • Fear makes a person always complain, and makes the person have doubts about the love of God and His care. For this reason we often find that fear is responsible for the person remaining inactive and not contributing positively in life.

    Fear paralyzes the person, making him incapable of advancing forward. Fear makes the person think that they will not be able to fulfill their dreams and wishes, and it makes the person remain silent, and not say the truth.

    —H.E. Metropolitan Youssef, How to Overcome Fear, The Effect of Fear on the Human Being

  • Fear is what bridles the tongues of people, preventing them from expressing themselves freely without embarrassment or fear. It is what makes many remain silent from [saying] the word of truth and defending those suffering wrong. It is what makes a person unsuccessful in his life, taking them away from their hopes and dreams, not realizing the achievements they desire to reach.

    —H.E. Metropolitan Youssef, How to Overcome Fear, The Effect of Fear on the Human Being

  • 84. Do not try to teach people at large about devoutness and right living. I say this, not because I begrudge them such teaching, but because I think that you will appear ridiculous to the stupid. For like delights in like: few – indeed, hardly any – listen to such instruction. It is better therefore not to speak at all about what God wills for man’s salvation.

    —St Anthony the Great
    On the Character of Men and on the Virtuous Life
    One Hundred and Seventy Texts

  • Flee from discussions of dogma as from an unruly lion; and never embark upon them yourself, either with those raised in the Church, or with strangers.

    —St. Isaac the Syrian

  • The poem is about silence, that it is really only there that lovers can know what they know, and there what they know is deep, nourishing, nourishing to the palms of the hands and the soles of the feet.

    Journal of a Solitude
    May Sarton

  • The Quiet Girl (2022)