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Christmas: The listening silence
This Christmas, practicing silence can help us open the inner ear of our hearts to actively listen to ourselves and others, and thenceforth commit to a process of working together toward the common good.
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Christmas mood: Children play with Merry Beary Christmas dolls at Ciputra World Mall in Surabaya, East Java, on Dec. 21, 2023.
(Antara/Moch Asim)
F
or Christians, Christmas is the celebration of God’s revelation in the human form of Jesus Christ, who was sent to earth to restore ties between God and humans, whom He created in His image but who then fell into sin.
When the night of the Nativity arrived, God entered human history in silence, without noise, as a humble baby who was born to a meagre and most miserable state, in a manger. God came to “pitch his tent among us” human beings and will continue to accompany us along the way.
The Nativity of Jesus is indeed inseparable from silence. “Silent night! Holy night! All is calm, all is bright,” goes the Christmas song that one can hardly miss during the holiday season.
Some figures linked to the Nativity in Bethlehem also drifted into silence. Joseph could not but be in silence after finding Mary with a child. Yet in his silence, God’s spirit spoke, and He heard the truth.
Mary was also in silence. She thought and wondered about everything that had happened, which was beyond her understanding. Silently, she treasured and pondered the angel’s announcement and the shepherds’ saying within her heart.
“Silence is not the absence of sound but the beginning of listening […] and listening itself is the deep revelation of silence,” says Salomé Voegelin, professor of sound at the London College of Communication.
To be in silence does not mean that one is unable to catch anything, because there is always something within the self that is asking to be communicated outside. Silence is a sort of unvoiced sound that cannot be measured or identified. Along with its endless space, silence will open up a condition that makes it possible for the ears to react and respond attentively.
