July 11 – The Silence that Transforms

Gregg’s Reflection

When we first built our cabin in Colorado, mornings were so still you could hear the wind miles away before it reached the trees around us. I’d step outside with a cup of coffee, the valley below still cloaked in shadow, the peaks just catching the first light.

At first, I treated those quiet mornings as pauses before the day began. But in time, I discovered they weren’t pauses at all—they were the true beginning, where my heart was realigned and my spirit made ready.

In that mountain stillness, I began to see silence not as emptiness, but as the place where God’s work in me happens most deeply. Over time, silence becomes solitude.

Scripture

For God alone, my soul in silence sits.

Psalm 62:1

After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper, a still, small voice.

1 Kings 19:11–12

Ancient Quotes

In silence and quiet, the devout soul makes progress, and learns the hidden mysteries of the Scriptures.

Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ, Book I, Ch. 20

Modern Quotes

Mystical consciousness emerges only out of deep silence, where human meanings fall away and we are immersed beyond thought, language and concept in the pure love of God.

Carl McColman, Christian Mystics, p. 150

Whatever our calling on behalf of the world, it must proceed from a foundational ‘yes’ to God, to life, to Reality. Our necessary ‘no’ to injustice and all forms of un-love will actually become even clearer and more urgent in the silence.

Richard Rohr, CAC Morning Devotion, 7/17/20

Journaling Prompts

• When was the last time you allowed yourself to sit in true silence?
  
  
• What happens inside you when you quiet your external and internal noise?
  
  
• How might you make silence a regular part of your spiritual practice?

👉 Go deeper into this week’s theme:
Read the full Week 28 Reflection: Mysticism