Create Silence and Peace for Each Other

Thomas Merton 

Those who love God should attempt to preserve or create an atmosphere in which He can be found. Christians should have quiet homes. Throw out television, if necessary -- not everybody, but those who take this sort of thing seriously.

Let those who can stand a little silence find other people who like silence, and create silence and peace for one another. Bring up their kids not to yell so much. Children are naturally quiet -- if they are left alone and not given the needle, i.e., teased, from the cradle upward, in order that they may develop into citizens of a state in which everybody yells. 

Provide people with places where they can go to be quiet -- relax minds and hearts in the presence of God -- chapels in the country, or in town also. Reading rooms, hermitages. Retreat houses without a constant ballyhoo of noisy 'exercises'.

Quoted in The Power of Silence

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