Silence

 Why do people flock to monasteries in remote places?  Silence.  They might like the awesome view, the well-prepared and healthy veggie food, but it is the silence that seems to grab them.  The Grand Tetons might be beautiful, but in a group of noisy tourists, cell cameras clicking, the scene loses something, a lot.  Monasteries are vacations from noise, internet, frenzy of sounds.  Even people who seem to get bored with “nothing to do,” are held in the peace of monastic silence.  It is not so much that there is no sound, as that the silence permeates the whole atmosphere.  It can lead to being comfortable in your own skin, even with previous trauma imbedded within you.  What I practice most all day long is silence.  Everything else is a bit here and there, like jogging, reading, singing psalms.  On a subway car, no one is talking, but that is not silence.  You know it when it happens.  It can be startling.