The Brave Descent Into Silence

In the winter of 1941, Thomas Merton drove through the Kentucky hills toward the Abbey of Gethsemani, his hands trembling on the steering wheel. He was not fleeing danger. He was driving straight into it — the danger of absolute quiet, where every distraction is stripped away and the soul stands naked before God.

Joshua 1:9 commands, "Be strong and courageous." We imagine battlefields. But the contemplative tradition knows a fiercer battlefield: the interior silence where we face ourselves without armor.

Teresa of Avila called it entering the interior castle — room after room, deeper inward, where the courage required is not to charge forward but to remain still. In centering prayer, when the mind screams with noise and the ego thrashes against surrender, the simple act of returning to your sacred word is an act of raw bravery. You are choosing to trust that the Lord your God is with you, even in the terrifying emptiness where His presence feels most like absence.

John of the Cross named this the dark night — not punishment, but purification. The courage God asked of Joshua was not merely to cross the Jordan but to cross into the unknown with nothing but the promise of Presence.

This week, sit in silence for ten minutes. When fear rises, do not flee. Return gently to the breath of the Holy Spirit within you. The deepest courage is not loud. It descends, quietly, into the place where God has been waiting all along.