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The Bishop's Journal
October 2000
Silence is Golden
Each summer for the
past number of years I have spent several days camping with a small group
of friends in a variety of remote wilderness settings. Although I enjoy
the canoeing, the hiking, the fellowship around the campfire, what is most
striking to me each time I go on these annual treks is the always new
experience of silence. No cars, no radios, no television, no cell phones,
no anything! One morning it was so quiet that I could clearly hear the
footsteps of a moose as it walked along the shore a half mile across the
lake from me.
There's something sacred and holy about silence. The theologian Douglas
John Hall captured some of that at a conference I attended earlier this
year when he remarked that, "Silence amid speech is like white space
around words on the printed page. Both draw attention to the words that
they surround."
It's similar to the experience of looking into a night sky in a remote
wilderness setting. The deep darkness of the night sky, unsullied by the
dim glow of the urban skyline, serves as the perfect canvas for a
celestial masterpiece of unparalleled beauty. The darkness allows us to
experience the light in much the same way that silence allows us to
experience the word, the voice of God.
There is precious little silence today. Perhaps that is one of the reasons
that many of us struggle with our prayer lives. It is difficult to hear
God's still small voice when there is so much noise around and within us.
Conversely, in times of silence we often experience a heightened awareness
of the sacred. But where to find it?
Maybe it's not so hard as we might think. For the past two days I've been
driving a borrowed car to work. The car runs fine, however, the radio is
broken. As much as I usually enjoy listening to the radio in my daily
travels, I've delighted in the new experience of driving in silence. The
relative quiet has given me an oasis in which to think, in which to listen
- a new space in which to pray. It's also reminded me that I have more
power over the soundscape than I might think. Maybe I need to exercise the
option of 'shutting off' more often than I do!
Spiritual directors tell us that our ability to pray is often undermined
by noise, including of course the usually excessive noise of our own
vocalizations! Recently I was in a setting where a lot of people were
rather freely expressing their opinions on a wide variety of subjects. An
elderly man was sitting back, quietly taking it all in when suddenly one
of the more vocal participants turned on him and asked, rather sharply,
why he wasn't participating in the conversation. After a long pause the
man said, "I was always taught to use words carefully and to only
speak when you can improve on the silence."
Speak carefully and only when you can improve on the silence. Perhaps
that's not a bad rule, be it for living or for praying!
The Rev. Michael J. Pryse,
Bishop
