I am reading a book - slowly - of Thomas Merton's drawings accompanied by his words. Here is a quote from the introduction:
The true contemplative is not one who prepares his mind for a particular message that he wants or expects
to hear, but is one who remains empty because he knows that he can never expect to anticipate the words that will transform his darkness into light. He does not even anticipate a special kind of transformation.
He does not demand light instead of darkness. he waits on the Word of God in silence, and when he is "answered" is is not so much by a word that bursts into his silence. It is by his silence itself, suddenly, inexplicably revealing itself to him as a word
of great power, full of the voice of God.
Thomas Merton...Dialogues with Silence, Prayers and Drawings,xiii
I am more and more fascinated by silence now, there is so little of it. Even those who come to a silent retreat increasingly misunderstand silence.They do not realize that silence is not for its own sake, but for the sake of the world it opens, both
inner and outer, a world that enriches, dares, and enfolds in a reality unknowable any other way but silence.