We all watched and read about protests this week in reaction to decisions by separate grand juries not to indict police officers involved in the deaths of Eric Garner and Michael Brown.

What moved me most were when protesters stopped walking, stopped chanting, “I Can’t Breathe,” and simply stood in silence.

There were moments of silence — many long minutes, in fact — in New York City, Boston, Pittsburgh, Miami, Hollywood, San Francisco, Indianapolis, Colorado, Arizona, and all across America.

On Friday, after a seven-day, 130-mile march from Ferguson, Missouri, the St. Louis suburb where Brown was shot and killed, protesters finally arrived at the State Capitol and stood silently in the rotunda.

Whether you’re Catholic, Protestant, Muslim, Jewish, or a non-believer, you witness that stillness and cannot help but feel its power.

It’s as if saying nothing says all that needs to be said.

If you are a believer, you cannot help but feel its holiness as well.

Silence, as the poets and psalmists say, is the first language of God.