We parked the car at the roadside and walked onto the grass. We stood together and sent our praises to the Most High. The prayer was sweet and when I dropped my head onto the cool, grass-covered earth, I felt myself truly a servant. For just a fleeting moment my heart was full of joy. As we walked back to the car, I began to understand. Prayer is service in the absolute. It is selfless service to God. Actually, one's entire life could be a prayer.
Silence has many dimensions. It can be a regression and an escape, a loss of self, or it can be presence, awareness, unification, self-discovery. Negative silence blurs and confuses our identity, and we lapse into daydreams or diffuse anxieties. Positive silence pulls us together and makes us realize who we are, who we might be, and the distance between the two. Hence, positive silence implies a choice, and what Paul Tillich called the "courage to be."