More than ever, we need silence.
We live in times when silence appears to have become strange. We have normalized a lifestyle that profoundly affects our mental, emotional and social health. It’s an addictive dynamic we often struggle to control.
You don’t have to be a researcher to recognize what is happening before our very eyes. Many couples’ relationships suffer from the imbalance of time dedicated to social media. Emotional crises arise from hidden messages, secret affairs or virtual connections.
Problems of anxiety and depression are growing, fed by approval or rejection delivered by digital platforms. Isolation, disconnection and interior confusion are on the rise amid the avalanche of information, opinions and contradictory values that polarize and fragment human coexistence.
The exterior world imposes itself like an incessant force that invades our attention.
In homes, this reality stokes permanent tensions between parents and children over the adequate use of screens. Some parents, to avoid conflicts, give up on setting limits. Others react from authoritarian models that suppress and punish, generating resentment and emotional distance.
There are, however, some families that manage to build a different path: homes where agreements and limits are established amid an environment of empathy and respect; where quality time and presence are cultivated, games are shared, meals enjoyed without screens and prayers are proclaimed together. There are no one-size-fits-all solutions. There are processes, decisions and daily learning.
From external controls frequently arise submission and fear; from internal controls arise conscious decisions that cherish and value life.
A fundamental question emerges: Where do we cultivate that which we want to radiate to the world? Where do we nourish peace, compassion and the capacity to discern and love?
Paradoxically, it’s not outside, rather inside of ourselves.
It’s in that interior space where we find ourselves without masks nor filters, where we are able to listen to the voice of our conscience. There, St. Augustine, after many years of searching, discovered the presence of God and wrote one of the most beautiful passages in “Confessions”: “You were more inward to me than my most inward part, and higher than my highest reach.”
It’s in silence where we learn to truly see and listen to one another. There, we allow ourselves to be seen by the one who created us; by the loving gaze of Jesus, who reminds us that we have always been loved and always will be.
“Silence is not the absence of something, rather the presence of someone,” wrote the acclaimed Spanish priest and author, Pablo d’Ors in “Biography of Silence.”
In silence, we open ourselves up to the gift of grace; we experience an unconditional love that heals and liberates because it allows us to accept our lights and shadows.
From those interior spaces of silence, we find the strength, peace and compassion necessary to live in the world without being dragged completely away by it. From there, we cultivate the patience and serenity to accompany one another amid daily demands that easily exhaust and disconnect us from the essential.
Perhaps, more than ever, our time needs to rediscover the value of silence. Not to escape the world, rather as the path to return to live in it with greater conscience, humanity and love.
