Imagine being struck dumb for almost nine months.  If you were unable to speak, or prohibited from talking, what would that be like?  

What would happen to the rest of your body if your mouth could not run and your tongue could not wag and your jaw could not flap, just for a season? Would you clamor for alternative means of communication?  

But what if other means of communication were shut down as well?  

At what point, if any, would you pause to ponder what God might be doing, or saying, or showing you, in the midst of an imposed silence?

In this pre-Advent episode, Wendy reflects on  the story of Zechariah's silence during his bride Elizabeth's pregnancy with the child who would become John the Baptist (Luke 1).  Tune in to ponder what it might look like to, as poet and artist Christine Valters Paintner suggests,  cultivate our capacity to listen deeply for God with the whole of our lives.