Perhaps you are familiar with the Quakers, and especially their custom of beginning a meal with a silent grace. A non-Quaker youth was invited for a meal in a strict Quaker household. The youngster was NOT familiar with Quaker piety and in particular, the silent preparation for food. He later reported his response to it: "There was this embarrassing silence when we first sat down at the table, and nobody knew what to say, and everybody looked down, so I told a funny story and that seemed to break the ice."(1)

Silence. There is not much of it these days, so we do not deal with it much better than that young man. The TV chatters on with one silly talk show after another. People haul their boom boxes to the beach so that they do not have to live in the silence between the rolling of surf and…