This past Sunday was Pentecost. I love reflecting on the movement of God’s Spirit. I’ll write some about worship this past Sunday later but today I want to reflect on Richard Rohr’s words from Letting Go: A Spirituality of Subtraction.

“As a people, we are afraid of silence. That’s our major barrier to prayer. I believe silence and words are related. Words that don’t come out of silence probably don’t say much. They probably are more an unloading than a communicating. Yet words feed silence, and that’s why we have the word of God – the read word, the proclaimed word, the written word. But that written and proclaimed word, doesn’t bear a great deal of fruit – it doesn’t really break open the heart of the Spirit – unless it’s tasted and chewed, unless it’s felt and suffered and enjoyed at a level beyond words.”

I’ve been doing a lot of unloading rather than communicating recently. I know I do this often but my TBI has made it difficult for me not to do it. Sometimes I just talk and talk and I can’t seem to stop myself for it feels so good to unload. I’m trying to journal more which helps but in spite of this, I still seem to unload a lot.

Today I spent time in silence. In a sense I was chewing, tasting and feeling everything at a level beyond words. I also sang. There is something about singing that frees my spirit to play with God. Only when I do these things am I able to communicate rather than babble as Jesus’ followers did on that day when the Spirit came so long ago.