We sat in silence for some time. It is a very, very difficult thing to do -- to sit in silence. Our world is filled with sounds, and we've come to feel that we must fill any void we encounter with our voices, or the radio, or the TV; almost anything will do, as long as we're not burdened by deafening silence. But there is a special beauty, I was coming to see, a special peace in quiet that is beyond words or the trappings of this world. But, oh, it is so difficult not to speak!
When everything familiar has been sheared away -- either because we have physically separated ourselves from our "home", or because our inner exploration has taken us beyond our old self -- we are presented with a great opportunity for spiritual growth. At such time, we are likely to examine our lives more deeply than we ever have before and be asked to trust far beyond our understanding. T.S. Eliot knew this place very well and expressed it eloquently in his poem, "East Coker":
I said to my soul, be still, and wait without hope
For hope would be hope for the wrong thing;
wait without love
For love would be love of the wrong thing;
there is yet faith
But the faith and the love and the hope are all
in the waiting.