In his book “Silent Compassion: Finding God in Contemplation” the author Richard Rohr states:

“How do you market that which is inherently unmarketable? How do you sell silence? How do you make attractive what feels like selling air or selling emptiness or selling something that, certainly to the capitalistic mind, would not immediately be attractive at all?”

These are good questions. This quote came to mind as I considered the reading I did yesterday for Academy for Spiritual Formation. I was reading through “Thirsty for God: A Brief HIstory of Christian Spirituality” by Bradley Holt when the following quote caught my attention: (1—I’m just starting the book)

“You may be dehydrated right now but not know it. One peculiar feature of our physiology is that the signals for lack of fluid are not immediate or strong. Thus we may feel uneasy or tired when dehydrated but not recognize these symptoms as thirst. By the time we recognize thirst as such, we have already moved through the early stages of dehydration. Why does this matter? It matters because keeping our fluid levels up is vital for our bodies to function in so many important ways: for energy, for healing, for our immune systems, for electrolytes, and yes, even for sex.

So one part of the human predicament is that we do not always know what we really need or long for. Another part is that we find it difficult to act consistently on what we do know.”

How does a person sell silence? How does a person sell water? We learn to recognize thirst as thirst by necessity. I think that we have to learn to sell people silence by showing them the value, the need it quenches, and to consistently model it ourselves. Hence, this is all I’m writing today. Silence…