One of the first things I notice when I visit monasteries is the quiet. We’re used to lots of chit-chat and televisions and radios playing and construction and traffic noises, and stepping through the door of a monastery all these noises disappear. They’re not completely silent places; the bell rings calling worshipers to prayer, and the voices of the monks sing the psalms. Conversation happens in some places, but it’s not the constant chatter we’re used to. Through many of the halls and for many of the hours we hear only a deep, rich, full silence.

In chapter 6 of the Rule, Benedict teaches the need for “restraint of speech.” He notes, referring to a Psalm, that there are times even “when good words are to be left unsaid out of esteem for silence.” “A disciple is to be silent and listen” Benedict says. Different monasteries practice this differently and have their own rules for when silence is kept, but all them have times when speaking stops and everyone is quiet.

Some don’t need to be told to be quiet. Some have been told too often their voice isn’t needed. Some have been left out of the conversations of the world and told their participation doesn’t matter, and for these silence is not a gift. The rest of us need to listen as they have their say. Silence isn’t the cure-all for the world. It is, though, a great teacher, if we let it be. It’s especially true for Protestants. We’re a people of the word, in all its definitions, and that makes us usually a talkative bunch. One teacher said to me, “We Protestants underestimate silence as a teacher,” and I think he’s right. Most of us can’t practice silence at the lengths monks do, but for all of us there could be a time when the music stops, the television is turned off, the chatter ceases, and we listen to the beautiful voice of silence.

I visited a bunch of churches in Italy this summer, and many of them are overrun with tourists with all the noise and chatter vacationers bring. Signs proclaimed that people were to be quiet, but most ignored that instruction. In one church we heard a recording occasionally calling us back to the gift of quiet by saying, “Shhh . . . silenzio.” Hopefully, wherever we are, there’s a time when all of us follow that instruction.