Silence, Or: it seems like theological school is getting to me...

I'm settling in for an afternoon of reading Simone de Beauvoir with a cup of hot chocolate. I just walked home from Davis Square and there's just enough of a chill in the air for my cheeks to be burning. After a week of spring like weather, it feels like late winter again here in Somerville. I'm grateful for the decline in temperature as it is helping me stay on task with my reading. Don't get me wrong: I love Simone de Beauvoir and everything she writes seems like pure gold to me, but it's just hard to concentrate right now. Above all, it's Saturday and I have never been a productive person on Saturdays. Put on top of that the fact that I leave for California tomorrow to be with my family through my grandfather's funeral on Saturday and you've got a recipe for laziness.  If the weather were nice, too, I would be hopeless.

My hot chocolate, my reading chair, the howling wind, and my handsome dog make it all a little easier, though. There's something comforting about being alone with just the sounds of the world to distract me. It reminds me of the story of Elijah listening for the voice of God (1 Kings 19:11-14). God was not in the wind, nor the earthquake, nor the fire, but instead in the silence. Perhaps I've been studying too much Negative Theology, but there is something deeply confounding, yet peaceful about that idea. After all the years I've spent learning to read, write, and speak, there are things that are best expressed in the silence. For a girl who has spent most of her life talking and trying to express herself adequately, it comes as a great relief to know that with all the power and might that Elijah's God had, he expressed himself in silence. But the silence did not last. After Elijah entered the cave, God spoke. Not only did he speak, he asked Elijah a question.

I think perhaps I am in a phase of silence in some aspects of my life, but I must have faith that as with Elijah, the silence will not last. While I'm not waiting for the voice of God to tell me of the anointing of kings and the destruction of a ton of people, I am waiting for my own still, small voice echoing in the cave.

Or to stick more closely to the story, I guess I'm waiting for the question. And I will wait in the silence as long as it takes.