The world has become noise, silence its orphan child. The contemplative is a seed of silence planted amidst the jungle of noise, one whose harvest will come at a later time, perhaps a later age. The contemplative is a witness to silence, affirming that all things come out of silence and must return to silence to be healed and re-created.
There are great treasures in the soul: there's faith and love, there's awe and wisdom. All these things you can dig — but if you don't know where to dig, you dig up mud. If you want to get to the gold — awe before God, and the silver — the love, and the diamonds — the faith, then you have to find the geologist of the soul who tells you where to dig. But the digging you have to do yourself.