Of the topics covered thus far on this Lenten journey, “silence” has given me the most pause. How does one cover silence in an image?

As I pondered, however, I realized something. Silence isn’t the absence of sound, it’s actually the presence of listening. A minimizing of sound is quiet, not silence. The two are often interrelated. In fact, I’m wired in a way which prevents me from entering into a listening silence unless I minimize sound distractions ¹.

Even still, silence and quiet are not the same thing. It’s one of the reasons why a movie theatre tells patrons “silence is golden.” A movie theatre is anything but quiet, but when patrons refuse to be silent ² they aren’t engaged in the on-screen spectacle – which becomes a distraction for others ³.

This rethinking opened me up to an image which depicts “silence” for me. Other than when I am writing, I find myself listening most when I’m reading. I love to become lost in the pages of a story, and through the art of silence I become swept up into it’s emotion and wonder. When I find in need to retreat from the world so I may reorient myself for listening I typically pull a book off the shelf, turn to a favorite chapter, and read ⁴. In honor of this tendency, I thought a picture of one of my bookshelves would be ideal to convey “silence.”

It’s part of the truth of who I am.