When you say nothing at all …

 I have loved this song for years, since the first day I’ve heard it by Ronan Keating. At the time, I was a fourteen year old boy. I remember as if it was yesterday. My father bought me an open membership to the cinema, allowing me to watch as many movies as I wish. I loved the movie theater more than anything else at that age. At times I would go at twelve o’clock in the afternoon as they opened their doors to the gates of wonder, and left at nine in the evening just in time to catch the last bus back home. I still remember clearly how I used to push myself up, applying my body’s pressure on my toes; so that the ticket conductor at the cinema would think am older than my age. When he/she asked of my year of birth, I always lied adding two years to my birth certificate, praying in my heart that they would believe me and grant me approval to watch the (Fifteen) rated movies.

Why did I love the cinema so much? At the time, it was where dreams were created for me. Love was born with a happy ending. Laughter was born in the worst of situations. Wars ended in peace. It taught me to dream, to believe in the unreal. But I also remember that when the movie was over another dream was formed. I recall seeing the couples walk out from the movie, holding each other’s arms, hand in hand. At other times, I would spot a lady on the row in front of me, laying her head on the shoulder of the man sitting beside her, kissing his neck gently as he held her tight body to body.  Many times I wondered if I will ever be one of those lucky couples.  If I would ever fall in love. If a woman would ever appreciate me enough to kiss me out of tenderness … I was a young boy, so were my dreams. They grew as my body grew, the man I became only dreamt bigger, became more determined and believed more in that he witnessed around him. I Thanked my creator for the gifts he blessed me with; to grow in an environment that is far from hate and judgments, where people expressed their feelings with no fear. Yet dreaming was never enough … I wanted to have a parallel reality, to create a world beyond the one I saw in the theaters, a world filled with my desires, a world backed up with patience, a world that is worthy of dying for at an old age.

I watched the movie, ‘Notting Hill’. I came back four times that week to watch the same movie over and over again, and every time I watched it felt as if it was my first time. I smiled at the theme song. It’s magical, every word of its lyrics lived through my body, and thirteen years later I still sing with passion “You say it best … when you say nothing at all”.

Silence … the most beautiful language used to describe feelings. Have you ever appreciated the most sensational beauties in this world? Mine are the calm river, the glamorous moon at night, the sunrise behind a proud mountain, the heavy rain washing away my sins and the naked trees in autumn. 

In order for people to speak beautifully they are required to learn their lessons. Lessons that can only be taught by God’s beauty on this earth. To master the language of silence, allowing the words to be born in beauty like a child in his mother’s  womb, something that must not be rushed, but patiently developed.  

That silence we use to express our enormous pain to the glorious God. As our hearts open up, the tears of sorrow escape, giving us that feeling of being reborn, allowing us to breathe once again.  We feel the Lord absorbing that pain from our soul cleansing our flesh, without the urge need to unseal our stiff lips. A language that is created through the infinite power of silence.

Silence, that I see when a man holds his new born child for the first time, as his eyes glow like a diamond with the tears of joy glimmering in them. Simultaneously a smile is drawn between his two cheeks, in happiness that can only be expressed through silence.

The look in a man’s eyes as he meets his love after years of separation. As you witness the blood rushing into every cell on his face, changing the tone of his skin color. He opens his lips to speak, he finds nothing to describe his emotion. The words of poets are useless now, the lyrics of songs are meaningless and no painting created can draw his feeling. But only a silent lip could tell her that his love is endless and eternal till the raise of the Day of Judgment. 

Some say words are cheap; I say words are as worthy as that who speaks them. 

Some say a picture is worth a thousand words; I agree, but in extraordinary moments a thousand words are simply not enough.

Some say silence is a weakness;  I say silence is an art, and in the hands of that who masters it, it exceeds in its strength all that surrounds it. 

The truth is more often heard through silence than it is told through words.

Newcastle - 11/6/2012