Few things seem to upset people more these days than when I suggest that silence is a virtue. To most, silence seems rather useless. In a culture that measures success by clicks, comments and followers, noise has become the standard currency.
“Make noise!” they say. “The louder you are, the more attention you get. The more attention you get, the bigger your platform.”
So we sit in front of our screens and we vomit noise into the world, and people can’t click “Like” fast enough.
* * * * *
I walk outside and lace up my muddy boots. I pull on my gloves and put my hood up. My oldest son comes outside with me. We pull the collars of our coats up over our mouths to keep out the cold, and we don’t say anything.
It’s a windy evening, and the oaks and spruce and cedar in the surrounding forest creak and groan against each other, complaining about how short these days have become. Through those tangled branches I can see the western sky, gold and pink as the sun leaves this Sunday behind.
I put my axe in the wheelbarrow and bump along the forest path to the stacks of unsplit logs. For the first time all day my mind is silent – there is nothing besides the small fissure in the log where I am aiming the axe. Forty acres of silence.
The log splits in half, each piece falling to opposite sides. My son lifts the pieces and drops them with a crash into the wheelbarrow. He is only nine and each lift of a heavy log represents a small accomplishment.
We marvel at what we see inside the split wood: there, buried in long, porous holes now cut lengthwise, are hundreds, thousands, of large black ants. They are hibernating for the winter – when I breath on a section of wood, the warmth coaxes them to life. Their bodies writhe like smoke, twisting, rising.
Those ants know the value of a season of silence. They understand the importance of waiting. There is a time for scurrying and working and gnawing, a time for digging and eating and moving.
But there is also a time for stillness. A time for silence. A time for waiting.
* * * * *
It’s been two months since I wrote a post over at my blog. That may not sound like a long time to some of you, but I’m beginning to realize how resistant I am when it comes to quieting my own voice.
Recently, when I was in Turkey, I met with a man who has Stage 4 colon and liver cancer. He has walked down to the lobby of life and is signing the final bill before checking out. He prepares to leave all of his luggage behind. More remarkable, he is at peace with this.
I, on the other hand, during the three weeks I spent with him, realized that I am not ready to die. The thought of leaving my children, my wife, this life – it left me with a sense of panic. For the first time in my life, I tasted my mortality, and it was bitter fruit.
As I thought through this anxiety regarding my eventual demise, I realized that a massive part of it came from my inability to embrace silence. After all, what better enforcer of silence is there than death? I didn’t want my love for my family to be silenced. I didn’t want the lines of communication with my children to be severed. I didn’t want to lose communion with this beautiful life.
I recognized a deeply buried fear, that somehow in death I might even lose the God I have spent my life seeking. Such total, irreversible silence is deafening.
* * * * *
Yet silence is a discipline the church would be wise to practice. We currently use an unprecedented number of platforms to create a previously unimaginable amount of noise. If we’re not denouncing people who don’t live up to our standards or giving our opinion on the latest sound bite, we’re plunging numerous serrated accusations into the backs of our fellow Christians.
But we have to speak out against the injustice. We have to bring attention to the abuse.
And this is true. Of course it is. But this is what I have learned during my very short period of trying to lessen the noise: there is power in occasionally practicing the discipline of silence. When we choose silence, we choose to relinquish control. We are forced to listen unconditionally. A stillness gathers, a groundswell of peace that will eventually overpower the noise.
It’s hard to believe, I know. It seems irrational. It’s certainly counter-intuitive. I guess it makes about as much sense as telling someone that in order to live, they must die.
Ah, I’ve missed your blogging Shawn. Parker Palmer says that “if no onw is talking, we believe something is dying.” So, the connection between silence and death, is insightful.
“. . . all words come out of silence. Words that have a depth, resonance, healing and challenge to them are words loaded with ascetic silence.” and “There is so little patience for the silence from which words emerge or for the silence that is between words and within them. When we forget or neglect this silence, we empty our world of its secret and subtle presences.” from John O’Donohue’s Anam Cara
I am struggling with blogging and its incessent wordiness (esp in comments, though you wouldn’t know by the lenght of this one!) and trusting the words I have and the spaces between them.
a wise friend once told me, when i was fretting over writer’s block and loss because of it, that in silence nothing can be lost, only gained.
you have said this well, shawn. thank you.
and thanks for calling us back to our truest center.
I do appreciate voice and the role speaking has in rising social justice. I also believe that periods of silence and stillness bring clarity to who we are and what/how to speak. For myself, the discipline lies in delicate, respectful balance between the two. Ty for this reminder.
When we are silent, and silence & listening becomes a habit, then, in those moments when we chose to speak, our words hold more power…
I think there’s a reason He always took time alone. There is value in it, somewhere. But, I agree, it’s hard to find it here in our culture. Thank you for the reminder to place our own value on quiet. I’m going to be more intentional about looking for it. ~K
Shawn, there is so much God-given wisdom in this post! I’ve felt led over the past season of life to practice silence in everyday conversations and in leadership.
What I’ve been discovering is that our effectiveness as husbands, friends, mentors, etc. is more closely correlated with our ability to listen rather than our ability to speak.
I admire your decision to practice silence and unconditional listening. It’s much easier said than done! Keep it up, brother, and thank you for sharing this post with us!
Thank you Shawn. It is both impossible and seemingly counter intuitive to beat noise with more noise. I have been wrestling of late with my own sarcasm and desire to avoid certain conversations because I can sense my own self-righteousness and anger steaming. And even when I want to opt out, I want to pt out in such a way that I make someone look foolish. It’s all so twisted and complicated, and so I value your advice that sometimes we just need to be silent.
My junior year of undergrad, I gave up speaking for Lent. It didn’t go too well. BUT, I learned something about myself. If I will wait out anger. If I don’t sit and mutter on and on, my anger will dissipate usually. I’ve also learned that walking away and being okay with not saying the last word does wonders for my heart and wellbeing. The hardest part is when those you’re walking away from yell behind you, telling you to come back and face the problem. To stop being childish.
Ah, who is it who said that the only things that are really true are paradoxes? That truth is in the slippery area between two opposites? I love your last sentence. It reminds me of the St. Francis prayer.
In regard to your topic, so many things come to mind: The real spirituality of a Quaker meeting and the spirituality of a lonely vigil in front of a Catholic altar. The oft heard admonition to take the cotton out of your ears and stuff it in your mouth–you don’t know nothin! The import and learning inherent in a silent retreat. The wisdom in the old adage that children (and oft times ourselves) should be seen and not heard.
Oh, I love this post, Shawn! Your writing is just exquisite, and this topic? So important and something I need more and more of as I get older. Learn to value these silent spaces now, Shawn. They will change your life. They will change you. Thank you for calling the church to more of it, the honoring of it and the practicing of it. Just lovely.