The Silence That Speaks: Contemplation, Mindfulness, and the Trap of Quietism

We are all exhausted. And not just because we didn't get enough sleep last night (though there is that).

We live in a world that measures worth by our productivity. Even in our spiritual life, we can fill our time set-aside with tasks. Read this Scripture. Pray these five prayers. Do this, do that. Done.

Ever feel like you spent your whole day moving but haven't actually gone anywhere?

We crave a little rest, a little silence.

Then we have it, and can't deal with it.

We sit down in the quiet and find silence itself has become unberable.

So what do we do? Reach for the phone again. Maybe the remote. Or the refrigerator door.

Somewhere along the way, silence became something we escape from rather than a source of rest.

This is why so many people are talking about things today like mindfulness.

It's also why more Christians are rediscovering contemplative and meditative forms of prayer.

But are these things really the same? Is Christian contemplation just mindfulness with different vocabulary? n we become in the silence.

 

The Ancient Invitation

Scripture often talks about silence. And for the most part, it's a very positive thing.

In fact, some pretty decisive moments happen in silence.

Think about when the prophet Elijah went up a mountain. God did not come in the wind that broke the rocks, nor in the earthquake, nor in the fire. Instead, after all the noise had passed, there came ”a sound of sheer silence” (1 Kings 19:12).

The Hebrew phrase qol demamah daqqah is famously difficult to translate. Older versions rendered it “a still small voice.” The literal sense is closer to “a voice of thin silence” or “the sound of a fine stillness.” You might say it's a silence that speaks.

The Psalmist knew this too. ”For God alone my soul waits in silence; from him comes my salvation” (Psalm 62:1). And more famously: ”Be still, and know that I am God” (Psalm 46:10). The Hebrew verb here, harpu, does not merely mean “be quiet.” It means to loosen, to let drop, to cease striving.

So silence, in the biblical imagination, is not empty. It is the space where God is heard and where the self at last stops shouting long enough to notice.

But here is where things get interesting. The world has always had many kinds of silence, and they are not all equal or interchangeable.

 

Mindfulness: The Silence of Attention

Mindfulness, as it is practiced today in secular settings, has some psychological benefits. There've been studies. It teaches people to slow down. To breathe. To notice the sensation of a breath, of the floor beneath their feet, their very weight. In a culture drowning in distraction, it's no wonder that this has become so popular. Research has shown that mindfulness practices can reduce anxiety, lower blood pressure, and even help patients manage chronic pain.

But we should be careful. Because there are some dangers here, too.

Mindfulness, in its Buddhist origins and in its modern secular expressions, is fundamentally about attention to the present moment. The self observes its own thoughts and sensations without judgment. The goal, insofar as there is one, is a kind of equanimity, a calm awareness of what is. In its Buddhist form, the deeper goal is often the recognition that the self itself is not what we thought it was: the ego dissolves; suffering ceases when attachment ceases.

Christian contemplation is a very different thing, even though we also use language like "detachment." In fact, to the undiscerning mind, it might look quite similar.

The point of today's e-mail is to help us make that discernment.

Contemplation is not primarily about attention to the self. It is about attention to the Other. Or rather, it is about allowing oneself to be attended to by the Other. It is not a technique meant to simply produce a state of "mind"; it is a relationship that produces a person as God created that person to be. The contemplative does not aim at emptying the mind so much as at making space for the One who fills all things.

Saint Teresa of Ávila described contemplative prayer as "nothing else than a close sharing between friends; it means taking time frequently to be alone with him who we know loves us” (The Book of Her Life, 8.5).

Notice what is present here that is absent from any purely secular practice: him who we know loves us. There is a Person on the other side of the silence. The silence is not a destination. It is simply "clearing away" one's schedule for a meeting.

This is the crucial distinction. Mindfulness, at its best, is about attentive breathing, and this can have physiological benefits. It is not in and of itself wrong or dangerous. But at its worst, and there is often a risk here, it is a bare form of listening to anything, or to nothing at all. Contemplation is listening to Someone. And that Someone is always God.

 

Quietism: The Silence That Refuses to Move

If mindfulness is the modern misunderstanding of silence, quietism is the older one, and in some ways more dangerous because it uses Christian vocabulary.

Quietism was a spiritual movement associated with figures like Miguel de Molinos in the seventeenth century, and it was condemned by the Church in 1687. But it has never quite disappeared. It reappears in every generation, sometimes with a new name.

In my new book, Grave Matters (the latest Unfallen book) that just released today, I have a character named for Molinos, and the novel tackles "quietism" directly.

The quietist error goes something like this: the highest form of prayer is total passivity. The soul must annihilate itself. It must desire nothing, ask for nothing, resist nothing, do nothing. Even resisting temptation is a subtle form of self-assertion. Once one has reached this state of pure passivity, whatever happens to the body is irrelevant. The soul is above such things.

You can see why this was condemned. It severs the interior life from moral action. It makes the will an obstacle to grace rather than the very place where grace meets us. And in its extreme forms, it excused terrible behavior on the grounds that the “true self” remained pure and untouched.

But the subtler forms of quietism are what most of us have to watch for. There is a temptation, in the life of prayer, to think that silence means we should stop any act of the will. That the goal is a numb tranquility in which we no longer ache, no longer petition, no longer wrestle. That the mature Christian, in this scheme, is one who has stopped feeling anything at all.

This is a distortion. The saints who went deepest into contemplative silence were also the ones who wept most freely, loved most fiercely, and worked most tirelessly. Saint John of the Cross, whose Dark Night is one of the most rigorous accounts of contemplative purification ever written, was also a builder, a reformer, a spiritual director who endured significant pains to reach the souls in his care. His silence made him more alive, not less.

Contemplation is not the death of desire. It is the purification of desire. It is not the abolition of the will. It is the surrender of the will to the One who made it.

And the difference is profound.

 

The Threefold Distinction

So let us try to name what makes contemplation different from its counterfeits.

First, contemplation is relational. Mindfulness is fundamentally solitary; even when practiced in a group, the practitioner is alone with their own awareness. Contemplation is a communion. It presupposes a Beloved. Its silence is the silence of two people sitting together who no longer need to speak, analgous to a husband and wife who simply enjoy resting in each others' arms and are content not to speak in that embrace. It's not the silence of an empty room.

Second, contemplation is receptive, not passive. This is the fine line quietism failed to discern. The contemplative is not doing nothing; she is doing the hardest thing of all, which is remaining present and open when she cannot see, cannot feel, and cannot control what is happening. This is why the great contemplatives speak so often of the will. ”My soul thirsts for God, for the living God” (Psalm 42:2). That thirst is not passivity. It is the deepest and most active form of longing.

Third, contemplation is transformative, and it is transformative in a very particular direction: toward love of neighbor. Any silence that makes us more inward, more self-absorbed, more indifferent to the suffering of others has gone wrong somewhere. Jesus himself withdrew to lonely places to pray, but he always came back down the mountain. The silence made him more, not less, available to the crowds. "When he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them” (Matthew 14:14). That verse comes immediately after he had gone away to pray alone. The pattern is not accidental.

 

Living This Out: Why We Don't Rush into the Dark

If you are exhausted, hungry for God, and intrigued by contemplation, the most important counsel the Carmelite tradition offers is remarkably simple: do not start by trying to contemplate.

In modern spiritual culture, we tend to jump straight to the highest forms of prayer. We crave the deep stillness at the top of the mountain before we have even put on our hiking boots. But Saint Teresa of Ávila and Saint John of the Cross are agreed on this point.

Attempting to force oneself into acquired silence without proper grounding is a fast track to self-deception, spiritual pride, or pure frustration. We are in danger of falling into "mindfulness" or "quietism" without the right footing.

The core issue comes down to a lack of discernment. When an untrained soul sits down in total interior silence, it cannot tell the difference between the peace of God, the peace of an empty room, or a subtle form of spiritual laziness. Without a solid foundation, we end up contemplating ourselves, mistaking our own calm emotional states for the Holy Spirit.

Contemplation is not primarily a technique; it is an infused gift from God, granted when the soul is properly disposed to receive it—with grace and loving consent.

To develop the spiritual muscle needed to receive this gift, the Carmelites point us toward a far safer, time-tested path.

Before you can sit in silent contemplation, resting in God's presence beyond words, you must first learn discursive meditation.

This means actively using your mind, your imagination, and the scriptures to interact with God. Saint Teresa insisted that beginners anchor themselves in vocal prayer, sacred reading, and imaginative meditation on the Gospels, especially the human life of Christ.

Meditating on Jesus' life and words trains your spiritual intellect, building a reliable standard of comparison. By learning how Christ acts and speaks in Scripture, you cultivate the exact discernment needed to recognize His true voice when He eventually speaks in the thin silence.

Knowing when to transition from active meditation into silent contemplation requires careful watching. In The Ascent of Mount Carmel, Saint John of the Cross outlined three distinct signs that indicate God is drawing a soul into contemplation.

First, the person experiences a loss of satisfaction in both worldly distractions and standard spiritual exercises.

Second, despite feeling spiritually dry, their mind continually turns toward God with a quiet, loving attentiveness.

Third, their mind simply resists visual or imaginative exercises; trying to force mental pictures feels dry and unhelpful.

Until God brings a soul to this specific threshold, trying to force a blank mind is merely shutting off your intellect rather than opening your heart.

If you want to prepare your soul for true silence, begin instead with what Saint Teresa called mental prayer, which is simply a structured, loving conversation with a friend. Set a modest timer for ten or fifteen minutes. Anchor your mind with a crucifix, an icon, or a single phrase of Scripture, such as Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me. Talk to Him candidly about your day, your anxieties, and your exhaustion. When your thoughts wander, gently bring them back to the person of Jesus rather than trying to sustain a vacant void.

Finally, remember that real contemplation purifies the soul outside of prayer long before it feels sweet inside of prayer. Saint Thérèse of Lisieux taught that spiritual discernment grows through tiny, unremembered acts of daily charity, humility, and patience. If silent prayer leaves you irritable with your family or cold toward your neighbors, you are not contemplating God—you are indulging in self-absorption. The ultimate test of valid interior silence is whether it makes your heart larger, softer, and more generous to the people right in front of you.

So do not be in a rush to force a silent mind. God does not measure the success of your prayer by how quiet your thoughts were, but by how completely you surrendered your will to His love. Start with Scripture, look at Christ, talk to Him honestly, and let Him draw you into the silence when He knows you are ready.

 

God Bless,

Judah