For silences: prayerful, penitent, skeptical, patient, sorrowful, anxious, lonesome, lonely, meditative, pensive, stubborn, contented. The silence between raindrops and the silence of ripples spreading on the surface of a pond. The silence between keystrokes. The silence of searching for the right word and the silence after the wrong one has been spoken. The silence when the phone does not ring. The silence when God does not answer. The silence before a baby wakes. The silence when the door has closed and the guests have gone. The silences we savor like chocolate on the tongue, closing our eyes, melting into a chair. The silences that echo too long in our bones: the silences we wakefully recall, longing to go back and fill them with some word of faith or hope or comfort. The silences we can never hear again.