What if Our Applause was Silence?

What if our applause was silence? Then the noise of our hands would not stop the music as it slowly blends with silence, but would urge it inward and outward and onward, like the wind beneath our wings transporting us to a place which only music and silence and poetry can approach. What if we applauded not with our hands, but with one heartbeat after another, racing to express appreciation for beauty that goes beyond word, beyond thought, beyond sound, beyond beyond? Imagine that your applause is simply the sound of your breathing, part of our communal breathing: shared inspiration. If your applause was silence, then it would resound in every moment, helping to carry this shared experience of worship forward with encouragement, gratitude, wonder, poetry, dance, and more. If your applause were silence, then as you remembered this moment and the next, you would also hear the applause blessing it.