If I were a physician and I were allowed to prescribe one remedy for all the ills of the
world, I would prescribe silence. For even if the word of God were proclaimed in the
modern world, how could one hear it with so much noise? Therefore, create silence!
In order to listen to God's silence we must escape the din of distractions that normally deafen us to it. Being deafened to the silence within as well as the silence without is corrosive to God-hearing. To be silent is to so empty oneself of the din of transitory distractions that one becomes fully receptive to the silence that always and everywhere underlies them. Silence is that state of spiritual sensitivity in which seekers make themselves available to the silence of God's voice.
~ from SPIRITUALITY OF THE HANDMAID, by Kerry Walters