There is the Empty Silence:
when the little hands waving out the car window disappear down the road
and suddenly the home seems a loosely-knit box of nothingness
and it must be filled by music or the washing of dishes;
when the streets are empty at three am
and there is still a long way to go;
when train times come and the station is suddenly bereft of its purpose;
the long winter months in age and illness.
when last note of the piano has dissipated
on a particularly beautiful piece
and before the applause begins;
the silence around the dying person’s bedside,
just as the soul leaves the pupils lax;
in a crowd when everyone is waiting in solidarity
for the TV to flicker
and for the talking head to explain what has happened;
the longer the silence, the more profound the moment.
The Holy Spirit revolves in a circle around the Full Silence,
as the Logos descends, the Silence increases.
The priest bends low over the bread and wine,
his voice lowers into the Secrets,
and the altar servers carefully take the books back and forth,
the water and wine,
and their very attempts at quiet movement tell us
that the centrifugal is closing in
on the spot on the altar over which the priest is bowing,
becoming the naval of the universe.
The bells ring out,
like a best man tapping his wine glass with a knife.
This is a moment of grace,
when we can match the air of our inner self
to all those around us, and to the Silent Lord;
for those who have cultivated the silence of the heart,
which is to listen to God,
recognize immediately that it is the same silence,
the same atmosphere of the Full Silence
They can put their hearts there too, on that altar,
know they are in the presence of fullness of being.
