What I believe: Part Four ~ Some Thoughts on Silence
One of the great gifts of Quaker spirituality is the art of listening. The insistence on creating a space for silence in one’s life allows a space to be created where deep listening can occur. It has been my personal experience that so much of the conflict in my life has been created because I was not listening to the other person in any meaningful way.
It doesn’t matter whether I am considering my relationship with spirit or with a significant other in my life. I have too much noise in and around me and I don’t nearly do enough to clear that noise away and open myself to the deep well of silence. Silence is the stable foundation for all interpersonal interaction. A life void of silence will be a troubled one, even if we don’t recognize it as such.
It should be understood that what we mean by silence is not the same thing as quiet. We can connect to that spiritual silence even in the heart of the urban clamor that surrounds us. I live in one of those older style apartment complexes with hallways and elevators. Even when things are quiet in my home there is noise all around me. Slamming doors, stomping feet, barking dogs, blaring televisions, elevator bells and the muffled but not so hushed voices of my neighbors immediately rush into fill the silence I have created. I guess nature really does abhor a vacuum.
Then there is the occasional blaring of heavy metal music in the apartment next to mine or what I have come to call “Mexican Polka music” (it’s as if Lawrence Welk grabbed a badly tuned accordion and went Salsa) and Rap thumping from the various cars idling in the parking lot.
The noises of living and the inconsiderate hullabaloo of neighbors have never been a big problem for me. Growing up in a home with 3 siblings and a shrill mother with an untreated personality disorder affords one ample opportunities to practice tuning out your surroundings. I am a master of tuning people out! I can ignore a situation like an Olympic champion. Inside my head it sounds like an adult talking in a Charlie Brown cartoon
However, what I have learned the hard way is that this is not silence. It is only desensitization toward noise. I can make things quiet around me. I can even quiet myself internally. But this is not the same thing as creating a space for silence to take hold in my life. This is disconnecting from life. Silence reconnects us to life. I am confident in this assertion because I have experienced it. Not because of any great skill or talent I possess. It certainly isn’t because I am a spiritual person; in fact I am the least spiritual person I know. I have experienced this silence only because occasionally in those rare moments that I am open to it I get swept up on the winds of grace and carried aloft into the internal region of my heart.
Grace carries me inward so that I can go upward. This grace connects me to my true being, one centered in a life of spirit and all of its blessings. It’s not a magical or new age sort of nonsense I am talking about. Sorrow is as real as joy here. But even in amidst the hardships of life I find a new strength to endure. The burdens become less heavy and the joys, well how do you adequately describe such joy?
In the spiritual literature of Judaism, Christianity and Sufism we find a lot of references to silence yet very little instruction on how to go about creating it. There is a lot of talk about openness and receptivity but no clear cut pathway to this. The Cloud of Unknowing and The Pilgrim perhaps come the closest to shining a light on this subject. Buddhism offers us techniques to practice mindfulness, yet as noted above I am not the most spiritual person in the world therefore techniques can often seem burdensome. I lack the overall discipline to persist.
Meeting with Friends and observing those quiet unprogrammed moments (I have never attended an actual unprogrammed meeting) often lead to heavy eyelids and a nodding head. Yet I am aware of this greatest of gifts given to the world through Quaker spirituality. It is often so palpable that the air itself seems to shimmer with it.
At this present moment in my life silence seems to be something of a mystery….or part of the greater mystery. I hear the voice of God through scripture, “Be still and know that I am God.” My only task is in being still and waiting for grace. During this time I am doing nothing but listening. Listening for that still, small voice that emerges not from the quiet conditions I have attempt to create but that comes from the deepest part of my being.