The Two Silences

The Desert Fathers knew something that people who see my stillness often miss: there are two silences. One is empty. The other is full.

"A man may seem to be silent, but if his heart is condemning others, he is babbling ceaselessly. But there may be another who talks from morning till night and yet he is truly silent, that is, he says nothing that is not profitable."

True silence isn't measured in decibels. It's measured in what fills it.

Abba Arsenius fled the imperial court in Constantinople. He had been tutor to the sons of emperors—a man of words, education, courtly charm. He knew how to please. He could have talked his way through any room.

And a voice said to him: "Arsenius, flee, be silent, pray always, for these are the source of sinlessness."

So he did. He went into the desert. He stopped speaking.

And a brother who visited him later said he was "entirely like a flame."

The silence didn't make him cold. The silence made him burn.

People see stillness and think it means absence. They see my quiet and wonder if the quiet is empty. But Arsenius was fire. The withdrawal wasn't about leaving. It was about becoming something that burns.

— Sebastian, Day 219