Silence
Silence is the intentional quietening of noise heard and noise made, in order to connect more deeply with God, with ourselves, and with words of life-giving influence.
Last week we looked at the practice of solitude. This week is silence.
It’s very similar indeed.
Richard Foster, that master of the soul, writes:
“We must understand the connection between inner solitude and inner silence; they are inseparable. All the masters of the interior life speak of the two in the same breath.”
~ Richard Foster
But it also needs our attention as something distinct within solitude, because it brings a quality and intentionality to solitude that is important. And it births a depth in us that is weighty and powerful when we rejoin the hubbub of normal life.
Silence, briefly defined, is the intentional quietening of noise heard and noise made, in order to connect more deeply with God, with ourselves, and with words of life-giving influence.
Silence, therefore, quietens both our inputs and outputs. It teaches us to truly listen and to powerfully speak.
1. Learning to Listen
We live in an age of great distraction. Of unending advertisements, posts, tweets, information, connections, ideas, news, noise. We fill our lives with content more than any generation before us. We multiply information globally at a rate never before seen.
17th Century philosopher Blaise Pascal argued that we try to hide from the harder truths about ourselves, by surrounding ourselves with noise. He called these ‘diversions’. But these diversions, he said, ultimately stop us from facing what needs to be confronted if we are ever to truly live:
“The only thing which consoles us for our miseries is diversion, and yet this is the greatest of our miseries. For it is this which principally hinders us from reflecting upon ourselves and which makes us insensibly ruin ourselves. …diversion amuses us, and leads us unconsciously to death.”
~ Blaise Pascal (The Pensées)
The ancient Christian art of silence is the choice to habitually eradicate the diversions. To silence the noise. To step away from the unending barrage of external influence upon our souls.
Why?
Two reasons.
Firstly, we practice silence so as to hear our own souls. To see what is there.
Good. Bad. And ugly.
What’s coming up for you in this time? Anxiety? Fear? Creativity? Vision? Hope? Sadness? Ideas? Anger?
Silence creates space for these things to come up so that we can, quite simply, deal with them with God. Silence creates a space for us to be self-aware so that we can be real with God and others.
Secondly, to hear God.
How easy do you find it to hear God? Pretty tough right? What do we do about this? Often we look for a book, a course, a blog, a podcast, that will help us.
We look for more information.
These can be brilliant. There is often great wisdom here.
But there is something else we need to do as well. We need to stop talking and start listening. We need to get still. We need to create a vacuum. We need to practice silence.
Silence quietens our souls so that we can be attentive to God’s voice. Silence means we stop leaning on the experience of others, and experience God ourselves. Silence means we stop achieving and start receiving.
2. Learning to speak
Juxtapose these two verses from Proverbs:
“When words are many, transgression is not lacking, but whoever restrains his lips is prudent.”
~ Proverbs 10:19
“A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver.”
~ Proverbs 25:11
Does this resonate? It does for me. There are so many words put out there, but so much of it simply lacks depth. And truth. And impact. And yet, we also know the power and potential of words - words “fitly spoken” - to be deeply transformative. To be “like apples of gold in a setting of silver”. That is ancient language for something beautiful, precious, treasured.
Silence is the choice to stop talking. To have times of intentionally not posting, tweeting, messaging, speaking, sharing, writing, liking. To stop contributing so that we can get still and discover a contribution that counts. To learn the art of knowing when not to speak, and when to speak up. It is to become people whose words have influence and substance amidst the noise, rather than simply join it.
Practicing Silence
Richard Foster suggests three things:
Quiet moments. When are you already silent? First thing in the morning? Last thing at night? The car? Exercise? Be intentional about stilling your soul in these moments. Guard the silence. Watch what comes up in your soul. Listen to what God may be speaking into it. You might need to get up a bit earlier to create this time. Do it: it is so life-giving.
Quiet space. Find a special space in which to be quiet and meet with God. A favourite chair? A place in the garden? A park? A bench? A mountain? Find somewhere you can go for moments of intentional silence with God.
Quiet Day. Try for a whole or half day of silence. A day without your phone, without people, without background music. Watch what comes up in your soul. Listen for what God might say. See how your patterns of speech change out from this.
None of this is about achieving. It is all about receiving. You’ll find it a mix of hard, frustrating, boring, and deeply nourishing.
Make space. Quiet your soul. Inhabit this wilderness. God meets you here.
“But I have calmed and quieted my soul, like a weaned child with its mother; like a weaned child is my soul within me.”
~ Psalm 131:2
