31 Days of Practicing Faith
In October, I am free writing for five minutes a day—raw and unedited—on practicing faith in the every day. Each day is based on a different prompt from 31 Days of Five Minute Free Writes.
{Day 5} – Silence
“Silence is spoken here,” the sign on the table says. We sit across from each other in the abbey dining room, my sister and I. We come to the monastery as often as we can but not nearly as often as we’d like. We chat for hours in the guest house living room or walking down by the lake. But in our rooms and in the dining room we observe silence along with the monks.
We speak with our eyes throughout the meal, smile or let out a little snicker. We come here for the silence and prayer but sometimes both of them are hard to make ourselves observe.
After breakfast she asks me if my mind races like hers when we sit in that silence or if I have learned how to keep my thoughts still. I laugh because I was wondering the exact same thing as song lyrics filled my mind or my thoughts wandered aimlessly. I wish I could make them be as silent as the abbey church. The way the stone walls echo with stillness is beautiful and haunting because I cannot seem to attain that kind of silence.
I look at the brothers who have devoted their lives to prayer and to stillness before God. I long to know if they have learned the secret yet. In the morning when the lights dim in the church and the only sound for half an hour are the creaking fans that circulate the air in this stone chapel—I want to ask them. But I stay silent. And I wonder.
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