Silence

We took J with some friends to go see The Nativity Story this week. J likes to ask questions -- all through the movie.

Nobody really likes to sit next to J during a movie. You either answer questions the whole time, or sound like you've sprung a leak, "Shhh. Shhh."

On the way home, J asked, "Why did God make it so Zechariah couldn't talk?"

I think that's a good question. Why did God do that?

I've always thought of it as punishment, and I've never liked that answer. It seemed out of character for God.

One of the devotions this week in Disciplines talked about this question in a way. The author is John Copenhaver, a professor at Shenandoah University in Winchester, Virginia. He says that Zechariah is our model of waiting in Advent. He waited nine months for the birth of his son -- for the arrival of a child promised by God.

Silence. Time spent not speaking. I've only ever practiced the deliberate discipline of silence for an extended period one time (anyone on an Emmaus walk has) -- if you can call an hour an extended period of time. I think perhaps that God didn't place Zechariah in silence as a punishment, but perhaps as a preparation for what was about to happen. Perhaps God knew what was best for this particular child of his -- Zechariah -- and gave it to him.

Do we ever do that? Do we ever fast from speaking? I can see a few different applications:

• An extended period of silence and solitude can remove us from distractions. Ortberg in The Life You've Always Wanted, says that the great danger is not that we will renounce our faith, but that we will become so distracted/rushed that we will settle for a mediocre version of it. We will just skim through life instead of living it.
• What about silence during prayer? What about if instead of listing wants and desires to God, we were to sit and listen for God. Instead of deliberately composing prayer, let your prayer muscles be silent, and just sit and think. God will work his way into that, and will start leading us in our silence.
• Sometimes, I think the discipline of silence just means listening. Stop talking, stop planning your next conversation contribution, and just LISTEN to the person in front of you. We have such difficulty making what the other person is saying more important than the thoughts we want to express. Sometimes we just need to stop talking, and to listen.

Image: Zechariah from the Nativity Story.