Why Be Silent?
"Silence," writes Joan Chittister in "Illuminated Life," "is the lost
art in a society made of noise." I agree. She goes on to say that
"the real material of spiritual development is not in books. It is
in the subject matter of the self." As a book lover, that is hard
for me to follow, yet I believe she is right. What God works with
in my silent times is ME. No matter how many books by Henri Nouwen
I read, or how many of Barbara Brown Taylor's sermons I ingest, it
is only with ME that God deals when I permit myself to be quiet.

--from the essay "Why Be Silent?"
by The Rev. Margaret W. Jones

Read the essay in its entirety.