Christmas Silence

Listen to A Holy Silence, a Christmas sermon delivered this year at Church of Our Saviour, Mill Valley, California.

Silence Paradox

Silence speaks with silent slate,
a place to project ourselves to hear
heart’s murmurings until heart comes home;
to poisoned mind on big screen large,
’til antidote resolves.

Silence guards ’gainst word distorted,

feeble language fails meaning carry
where trust away corroded and time-rusted relation.

Watchful silence better than angry exchange,

patience borne that withholds all words,
for word of God withheld lest rend us might,
before we are ready for Truth.

Silence: darkness before Truth’s dawn,

the time to anxiously prepare,
for the Light that will reveal all,
and even silent hearts exposed will show
their true hue and life’s delight.

Silence: most loving when all other love extinguished,

and all other avenues pounded to rubble,
and even fear itself grows waiting weary.

Silence: the stuff of unclosed conversations,
and business left undone,
of lives cut short and forsaken loves.

Silence: wisdom when no response will do,

when it is time to make way beyond all judgment, all control,
allow the errant heart to find its own path through the maze of life.

Silence: language of death that awaits new life,

of darkness under stars of hope ’fore God’s new Light,
of waiting upon nameless expectation,
that wraps us up against the cold...
in the warmth of silence, that faithful paradox,
where whole universes await new birth.

– Advent/Christmas 2013