The Fullness of Silence

Against a pale blue cloudless sky we see a leafless tree on a small rise in the desert. The light brown earth surrounding the tree is mostly covered by dark grey-green scrub. Behind the tree there is a rocky outcropping.

Silence is never merely a cessation of words… Rather, it is the pause that holds together—indeed, it makes sense of all the both spoken and unspoken. Silence is the glue that connects our attitudes and our actions. Silence is fullness, not emptiness; it is not an absence, but the awareness of a presence.

from In the Heart of the Desert: The Spirituality of the Desert Fathers and Mothers, p. 46