Silence and Waiting

“We are silent in the early hours of each day,

because God is supposed to have the first word,

and we are silent before going to sleep,

because to God also belongs the last word.

We are silent solely for the sake of the word,

not in order to show dishonor to the word

but in order to honor and receive it properly.

Silence ultimately means nothing

but waiting for God’s word

and coming away blessed by God’s word.

***

Life in a prison cell may well be compared to Advent:

one waits, hopes, and does this, that, or the other—

things that are really of no consequence—

the door is shut, and can only be opened from the outside.”

~Dietrich Bonhoeffer (Letter from Bonhoeffer at Tegel prison to Eberhard Bethge, November 21, 1943)