Silence, Prayer, and Noise

Sending Love to the Heartbroken

DALL-E: A tranquil desert scene

A prayer is better in a quiet moment of stillness. In moments of true prayer, there’s a feeling of Oneness. The moments are an embrace and a plea, an outpouring of love and a humble beseeching. Prayer can engulf the soul, if only we let it.

The noise of this world is loud. Even if we live in places where quiet reigns outside the window, the noise can still reach us. The discord, the sadness, the chaos, the ignorance, the words of destruction – a few taps on a slate of glass will take you to them.

My ears hurt. I want it all to stop. Stop the bombing, stop the annihilation, stop the cries, stop the vitriol, stop the hatred. I want to yell stop, but I don’t want to be another voice yelling into the mass. And here I am, yelling into the mass.

Silicon slates don’t have purity of a prayer. Ironically, our devices fail to help us Connect where it really matters. They can be enablers of wonder, and they can be machines of distraction and polarization. In moments like this, I love them and I can’t stand them.

Perhaps silent and sincere prayers feel worthless. I don’t buy such skepticism. Sincerity creates the loudest reverberation.

For people like me, with no political power and little (but growing) knowledge, I hold to prayer and a soft outward silence. I’m an open book when asked directly, but I have no inclination to enter the fray. Through silence, I’ve found answers to my questions and a calmness of purpose.

Whoever knows the value of speech is an expert in the company of silence: once a person has been exposed to the subtleties of silence, and has been entrusted with its treasures, then both his speech and silence are worship.

~ Lantern of the Path by Jafar al-Sadiq

Each of us have our words to say and not to say. I pray for the peace-loving people of the world. I pray for the oppressed and the attacked. I pray for those naive enough to hope for peace, while others validate and support bloodshed. Outwardly, my voice is small. But my heart thumps loudly. Surely, it is loud enough to reach the All-Hearing, the All-Knowing.