“But it is terribly important to keep silence. When? Almost all the rest of the day. It is essential that priests learn how to silence all their routine declarations of truths that they have not yet troubled to think about. If we said only what we really meant we would say very little. Yet we have to preach God too. Exactly. Preaching the word of God implies silence. If preaching is not born of silence, it is a waste of time.” (8 January 1950)

Merton, Thomas. The Sign of Jonas. San Diego: Harcourt, Inc., 1981, page 266. (originally published 1953)

Keeping silent is a difficult thing for some people. But it is at least as important and necessary as speaking the right word at the right time.

Writing here, Merton was thinking specifically of preachers who speak the sermon or homily in a service of worship. I’m pretty sure that he would agree, though, that all of us regularly ‘preach’ with our actions, and in our daily conversations and social media posts. [okay, so first we would have to explain “social media” to him]

And I would agree that silence is golden. That we simply do not have to always throw in our 2 cents worth. That we do not have to reply to social media. That we do not always need to explain ourselves, defend ourselves, attack the other, or argue our way through the day.