There are seasons when heaven is quiet. The prayers go up, the silence comes back. This sonnet sits in that long quiet, and refuses both the easy lie that says God must always speak loudly and the deeper lie that says silence means absence.
The Sonnet
The heavens have been silent for some time, No clear voice answering my asking long, No vivid sign, no inner-spoken rhyme, No sudden conviction, sweet or strong. I had grown used to little nods of grace, Small confirmations of the path I walked, And now the steady absence of His face Has left me asking what I have unlocked. But silence is not always God withdrawn, Sometimes it is the deepest tutoring, A weaning from the props I leaned upon, A trust that learns to walk without His ring. So I will wait, though heaven hold its tongue, For love is faithful when no song is sung.
Reflection
The mystics speak of the silence of God as one of the great teachers. When we are young in faith, we often experience God in vivid ways, small confirmations, felt presences, answered prayers that line up so cleanly we cannot mistake them. Over time, those reassurances often grow sparser. We begin to wonder if something is wrong.
The contemplative tradition says, gently, that something is not wrong. We are being weaned from the consolations we leaned on, into the deeper trust that does not require them. A child learns to walk by being set down. A soul learns to trust by being given room. The silence of the heavens is not always abandonment. Sometimes it is the next stage of love.
If heaven feels quiet today, do not panic. The God who was loud when you needed loud may now be quiet because you are ready for the deeper conversation. Stay. Wait. Trust the silence.
