The need for Silence

Mother Teresa's 100th birthday is approaching and I was struck by this quote that is with all of the announcements about her birth, because she is literally credited with hundreds of famous quotes,

"We need to find God, and he cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence. See how nature—trees, flowers, grass—grow in silence; see the stars, the moon and the sun, how they move in silence... We need silence to be able to touch souls." Mother Teresa.



This has been hitting me a lot recently, the need for silence. Technology has become such an assault on our senses, that if you don't actively seek silence everyday you will not find it. I am not against technology, as I am a proud owner of the iPhone, and I can see the good that technology brings to man, the danger is only when we become a slave to these things. A clear sign that we are becoming a slave, is when we value what's fake more than we value what's real.



This leaped off the page for me in the book Mr. Blue, which was required reading at all Jesuit high schools. The book was written in 1928, and it talks about a time when men will rather, "look at the ceilings in their rooms,", then , "explore the fields, the streams, the ocean, the mountains, the flowers,". Think about this for a second, that is exactly what has happened to kids today. They would rather play video games in their rooms, fake adventures, then find real adventures in the real world. It happens to adults to, our blackberry's, our iPhone, our gadgets, and we forsake what is most real, Our spouse, our kids, nature.



Again, technology offers the world a lot of good things, but we just have to be careful that it doesn't become an idol. The answer in my opinion is silence, nothing is more real than God's grace in our souls.