Silence has many dimensions. It can be a regression and an escape, a loss of self, or it can be presence, awareness, unification, self-discovery. Negative silence blurs and confuses our identity, and we lapse into daydreams or diffuse anxieties. Positive silence pulls us together and makes us realize who we are, who we might be, and the distance between the two. Hence, positive silence implies a choice, and what Paul Tillich called the "courage to be."
I am now an emergency physician and the medical director of a busy trauma center in western Colorado. To this day I shake my head in wonder when I look back upon the series of events that has driven me inexorably to this point. I see now that it all began the night when my life was a certain and violent death. And I also see that I have been shepherded to this place in my life for a reason. Now I speak with angels all the time.
