The Vow

An interesting thing happened to me today. I was having a discussion w/my friend at work (the one who told me when we first met that he is a "hard core" Christian), regarding several things that at least to me seem relevant to how our current global situation relates to our faith in Christ. It was a very deep conversation as ours usually are, but at the end of it I found myself dominating the conversation, as I often do, particularly regarding such a topic. When I completed my thought, my friend was silent for quite sometime, it seemed like minutes, probably less than one, but when he finally spoke, something amazing happened to me. He gently told me, as brothers are to do for one another, "I thinks that you have spoken more in the short months I've known you than Christ spoke in his entire life."

I should have began my silence then, but we chatted for a few more moments about speaking and silence and got back to work. I came up to him before he left for the day and thanked him.

So it is that tomorrow October 12th, 2006, for the first time in my life, I am taking a vow of silence. This will be challenging for me for many reasons. The first of which is the fact that I have to speak to customers all day at work. Fortunately, I open tomorrow before customers arrive and I'm off at noon. Of course I'll have to speak some, but my goal is to only speak when absolutely necessary and with great care. I'm not sure what to expect, I'm not even sure that I know what a vow of silence means, but I think it has something to do with disciplining oneself through exterior silence, so that perhaps interior silence will follow. I hope someday soon, I can take a longer vow in which I will not speak whatsoever. This quasi-silence will be accompanied by a quasi-fast ending at EROC (the affectionate name of our Thursday night small group meeting) with dinner and the Lord's Supper. What I hope to accomplish by this is to receive a small taste of desert life.

If anyone is confused as to why I think interior silence and desert life are important, visit Praying With The Saints, or read Contemplative Prayer by Thomas Merton.

Peace to all