The Sound of Silence
There is a story told by Metropolitan Anthony Bloom (of blessed memory) in his book, Living Prayer, about an old Orthodox man who would sit in church for hours in front of the icon of Jesus without saying a word. When asked about this, the old man replied, “I look at Him, and He looks at me, and we are happy together.”
When I was a child, my favorite places were empty churches. My friend Mary was working on getting her license to be a practicing counselor, and she led Rapha groups in order to get the counseling hours she needed to get the license. Since I would stay with her for days on end during my summers, I would inevitably go with her to these counseling sessions. Seeing as how I wasn't a drug addict, an abuse victim, or the family member of an alcoholic, I would pass the evening hours inside the empty sanctuaries of the churches in which the counseling sessions were taking place. Most of the time it was night out, and the sanctuaries were dark, quiet places full of peace. I would kneel at altars and pray or sing or simply be still. I would sit in pews all over the sanctuary in order to really get a feel for the place. Hours would pass without hearing a single outside noise.
The point of such silence is silence. It's really the hardest part of stillness, at least at first. So often, we jump to fill the void. Our headspace becomes full of thoughts, prayers, worries, imaginations. It takes a long time to quiet ourselves to the point that we can simply look at Christ in an icon, be looked at, and be happy. I read on a friend of a friend's blog today that she had recently read that one of the early Church Fathers declared that the language of heaven is silence.
Several years ago my husband and I stayed at a monastery for a week during our Spring Break from teaching. It was a Benedictine monstery out in the deserts of New Mexico, about thirteen miles from a real road and totally off grid. The silent desert, silent monks, silent working side by side with the monks, silent meals, and silent guests made for a very spiritually fruitful stay. The monastery even offered guests little wooden medallions to be worn when they didn't wish to speak or be spoken to. I discovered that becoming attuned to the silence heightened my spiritual senses. While dining with the monks and other guests, I felt that I could "hear" their spiritual voices. I'm not talking about mind reading, but rather a truer, deeper awareness of the other person as a person. It almost reached a point where I thought that verbal communication was entirely unnecessary.
And then we left. Within the next day of being in the midst of our noisy culture, I broke down in tears several times. I simply hated, loathed the noise that surrounded us. I felt like I couldn't think; I felt like I couldn't access God. I felt bombarded -- attacked by noise, noise, NOISE. It seemed that people filled the air with absolutely useless chatter. Women talked about purses, makeup, shoes. It aggravated and irritated me. People were speaking every random thought that came into their minds. Their goal wasn't to communicate something real; it was merely to fill a void so that they felt important and somehow validated. I was very pessimistic for the next few weeks. But, gradually, I too became immersed in the noise culture. And now, the noise and conversations don't bother me. I don't turn into a crying, blubbering fool because I miss the silence and can't cope with the frustration of noise. I don't even hardly know what silence is anymore.
But I remember the empty churches and the monastery stay with fondness, and perhaps a vaguely nostalgic longing. Oh to sit and look at Christ, and have him look at me, and be happy together. Reintroducing the spiritual discipline of silence to my world would be such a good thing. It helps to know how to speak the language of heaven, don't you think?
When I was a child, my favorite places were empty churches. My friend Mary was working on getting her license to be a practicing counselor, and she led Rapha groups in order to get the counseling hours she needed to get the license. Since I would stay with her for days on end during my summers, I would inevitably go with her to these counseling sessions. Seeing as how I wasn't a drug addict, an abuse victim, or the family member of an alcoholic, I would pass the evening hours inside the empty sanctuaries of the churches in which the counseling sessions were taking place. Most of the time it was night out, and the sanctuaries were dark, quiet places full of peace. I would kneel at altars and pray or sing or simply be still. I would sit in pews all over the sanctuary in order to really get a feel for the place. Hours would pass without hearing a single outside noise.
The point of such silence is silence. It's really the hardest part of stillness, at least at first. So often, we jump to fill the void. Our headspace becomes full of thoughts, prayers, worries, imaginations. It takes a long time to quiet ourselves to the point that we can simply look at Christ in an icon, be looked at, and be happy. I read on a friend of a friend's blog today that she had recently read that one of the early Church Fathers declared that the language of heaven is silence.
Several years ago my husband and I stayed at a monastery for a week during our Spring Break from teaching. It was a Benedictine monstery out in the deserts of New Mexico, about thirteen miles from a real road and totally off grid. The silent desert, silent monks, silent working side by side with the monks, silent meals, and silent guests made for a very spiritually fruitful stay. The monastery even offered guests little wooden medallions to be worn when they didn't wish to speak or be spoken to. I discovered that becoming attuned to the silence heightened my spiritual senses. While dining with the monks and other guests, I felt that I could "hear" their spiritual voices. I'm not talking about mind reading, but rather a truer, deeper awareness of the other person as a person. It almost reached a point where I thought that verbal communication was entirely unnecessary.
And then we left. Within the next day of being in the midst of our noisy culture, I broke down in tears several times. I simply hated, loathed the noise that surrounded us. I felt like I couldn't think; I felt like I couldn't access God. I felt bombarded -- attacked by noise, noise, NOISE. It seemed that people filled the air with absolutely useless chatter. Women talked about purses, makeup, shoes. It aggravated and irritated me. People were speaking every random thought that came into their minds. Their goal wasn't to communicate something real; it was merely to fill a void so that they felt important and somehow validated. I was very pessimistic for the next few weeks. But, gradually, I too became immersed in the noise culture. And now, the noise and conversations don't bother me. I don't turn into a crying, blubbering fool because I miss the silence and can't cope with the frustration of noise. I don't even hardly know what silence is anymore.
But I remember the empty churches and the monastery stay with fondness, and perhaps a vaguely nostalgic longing. Oh to sit and look at Christ, and have him look at me, and be happy together. Reintroducing the spiritual discipline of silence to my world would be such a good thing. It helps to know how to speak the language of heaven, don't you think?