Silence has many dimensions. It can be a regression and an escape, a loss of self, or it can be presence, awareness, unification, self-discovery. Negative silence blurs and confuses our identity, and we lapse into daydreams or diffuse anxieties. Positive silence pulls us together and makes us realize who we are, who we might be, and the distance between these two.
Interpretation
Silence can have both positive and negative effects on our self-awareness and identity.
In this insightful quote by Thomas Merton, silence is portrayed as a multifaceted experience that can lead to various states of being. Negative silence can cause confusion and disconnection from one's self, leading to daydreams and anxiety, while positive silence fosters unity and self-discovery, allowing individuals to reflect on their true identities and aspirations. Thus, silence plays a crucial role in shaping our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
In practice
This quote could be used in a mindfulness workshop to discuss the importance of silence in self-awareness.
The devil is no fool. He can get people feeling about heaven the way they ought to feel about hell. He can make them fear the means of grace the way they do not fear sin. And he does so, not by light but by obscurity, not by realities but by shadows; not by clarity and substance, but by dreams and the creatures of psychosis. And men are so poor in intellect that a few cold chills down their spine will be enough to keep them from ever finding out the truth about anything.
Our vocation is not simply to be, but to work together with God in the creation of our own life, our own identity, our own destiny....To work out our identity in God.
Conscience is the light by which we interpret the will of God in our own lives.
You are made in the image of what you desire.
But if you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I think I am living for.
I have the immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now that I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.
I was wrong, however, to suppose that Sellers thought the world revolved around him. He thought the cosmos did too, and history, and the fates... Like every egomaniac, he behaved as if everybody else spent their day being as interested in him as he was.
The Church is a virgin, the bride of one Spouse, Who is Christ, and this Church does not allow herself to be violated by any error; so that, throughout the whole world there may be for us one uncorruptedness of a single chaste communion.
All sins are attempts to fill voids.
Crime is naught but misdirected energy.
Whatever mitigates the woes, or increases the happiness of others, is a just criterion of goodness; and whatever injures society at large, or any individual in it, is a criterion of iniquity.
We can do nothing without the body, let us always take care that it is in the best condition to sustain us.
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