Time ... The ancient ones knew that there was a relationship between time and light. That light has no time. Nothing can travel at the speed of light but light itself. If we approach the speed of light, we must become light. When we become light -- a Child of the Sun -- then time is dissolved. We all know that our deeds today affect tomorrow, that our smallest gestures influence destiny, that the future of our species changes constantly with every action of every living thing on Earth. Time is polychronic AND monochronic -- it does not fly like an arrow only. It also turns. Like a wheel. (He traced a circle in the air with his fingertip.) When these two kinds of time intersect, that is sacred time, ritual time, when you can influence the past and summon destiny from the future.
In every ministry, one is giving something to someone else; in shared silence, one is giving oneself. Sharing interior silence is the giving of one's inmost being to another. When one does this in a group, everyone shares everybody else's level or degree of interior silence. Thus, everyone in the group tends to move to a deeper place than when alone and relying on one's own limited experience.
This is especially the case when silence is penetrated by the gift of interior silence. Then silence is an encounter with the divine presence within. One rests in the conviction of faith and in peace that transcends joy and sorrow. It brings one in face-to-face contact with God, so to speak, a being-to-being exchange.