The echoes of silence

"Breathe through the heats of our desire
Thy coolness and Thy balm;
Let sense be dumb, let flesh retire;
Speak through the earthquake, wind, and fire,
O still, small voice of calm!"
Dear Lord and Father of Mankind (John G. Whit­ti­er)

Recently I have been thinking a lot about Sabbath and about rest. I am slowly coming to a realisation that I am approaching it the wrong way. Or rather that I am expecting the wrong thing. I find myself going into a period of retreat by offering it to God and asking him to meet me in it. I usually enjoy the time immensely but emerge the other end feeling faintly disappointed that God has not met me. It is as if I expect some blinding new revelation or a magical transformation of my circumstances. When this does not materialise I feel as if God failed to show up - or perhaps I failed to notice him.

What I do find, however, is that in subsequent days I am more aware of God's presence. Of his grace in my daily life. Of empowering and equipping to do the things I need to do. I have always faintly objected to the last line of the hymn 'Dear Lord and Father', because in Elijah's case it was not until the earthquake, wind and fire had abated that God spoke. In the stillness after. But perhaps the hymn writer is right after all. Because it was in the power of the silent voice that Elijah went on to do the difficult things God asked of him. As if in some way the silence was woven into the fabric of his soul, so he could carry it with him into the turmoil of daily living.

The long, dark night...

"Listen carefully: Unless a grain of wheat is buried in the ground, dead to the world, it is never any more than a grain of wheat. But if it is buried, it sprouts and reproduces itself many times over. In the same way, anyone who holds on to life just as it is destroys that life. But if you let it go, reckless in your love, you'll have it forever, real and eternal." John 12:24-25 (The Message)

Looking back at my Good Friday post I had planned a triumphalistic follow on. Posts to follow Easter and reflect on the wonder of the resurrection. The truth is, however, I'm still stuck in that pause for breath. The last few months have been "interesting". I have watched the organisation I work for once again seemingly tearing itself apart. People have left who are still committed to what we do, not because they want to go but because of financial pressures or a perceived need for efficiency. A lot of it has been at best badly-handled and at worst unnecessary.

My own walk with God still seems stuck in the silence that I talked about last September. Small signs of growth and movement are visible - but the big picture still has not emerged. In the midst of it all I continue to cling to one thing. God knows what he is doing. As Adrian Plass would say, "Nothing is wasted".

For my colleagues moving on to new things I hold firmly to Romans 8: 28 - "And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose". The loss of a job is painful - but each ending is a new beginning. The circumstances may be regrettable, but God can weave something amazing from them. If I am unable as yet to see the pattern that is emerging I am left once more to just to wait.

Silence and growth

"It was the quietest wood you could possibly imagine. There were no birds, no insects, no animals, and no wind. You could almost feel the trees growing. The pool he had just got out of was not the only pool. There were dozens of others - a pool every few yards as far as his eyes could reach. You could almost feel the trees drinking the water up with their roots. This wood was very much alive." C.S.Lewis - The Magician's Nephew

Sometimes breaking silence is useful even if you have nothing to say. If only because saying something gives a basis for new thoughts to crystallise upon.

Reflecting on my last post I realise that it is not so much the quality of the silence which is different, but the emotional state I am in as I experience it. This may be so obvious that it hardly needs stating, but I found it a helpful thought. Why? Because my emotional state is only part of the equation. God's view of the silence may be completely different.

Occasionally I am asked to preach. Initially I used to worry about this. Now I find I quite enjoy it. Not least because I am sure that I learn far more from it than I am able to pass on. The last time I preached I was given a free topic, and I chose the life of Abraham. In preparing, I found myself wondering how Abraham coped with the silence. From God's initial call to the fulfillment of the promise he waited twenty-five years. And if the bible records every conversation God had with him, for the majority of those years God was silent.

The next line of the Pink Floyd quotation I used in my last blog is "of promises broken". If the story of Abraham teaches anything it is that God keeps his promises. Just because God was silent it didn't mean he was not active, or that Abraham was not growing.

The quality of silence

"There's an unceasing wind that blows through this night
and there's dust in my eyes, that blinds my sight
and silence that speaks so much louder than words" Pink Floyd - Sorrow

I knew it was a while since I last wrote; I hadn't realised it was two whole months. Silence, however, is not inappropriate because that is where I find myself. A few months ago I wrote "it is almost as if I have run out of words" and to an extent that is how I still feel.

Have you ever noticed there are different kinds of silence? When I walk, hand-in-hand, with my mother around the grounds of her care home, we are often silent because she has so little to say. This is a companionable silence. At the theatre an expectant hush descends in the time between the dimming of the house-lights and the opening of the curtain. Office banter gives way to preoccupied silence as people work. Sometimes I find myself pausing in conversation as a new, unrelated thought hits me - a distracted silence. And then there is the stony silence after an argument. I remember once driving around Scotland with two friends. We had disagreed on the goal for a day. Two of us wanted to get to the coast - the third wanted to climb a mountain. The silence from the back seat of the car became almost like a physical presence. I could feel it's negativity reaching out and suppressing the joy of the holiday.

This last couple of months I felt most of these types. It started by getting distracted with some new project. This drove me into preoccupation and - dare I say - a month where I pretty much ignored God. Awaking from that I realised just how much I had drifted. Moving back toward companionable silence has been hard work. I'm still not entirely sure I have made it. Sometimes even companionable silence stretches out and becomes stony. It is hard to break that kind of silence, when you don't know what to say.

Spiritual pathways...

Having looked in my last entry at the value of silence in drawing nearer to God, I feel that it is worth pulling back slightly. There are many traditions and authors who would advocate silence. I can endorse from my own experience that it is beneficial. However, as Christopher Jamieson has said, silence is not the aim but rather a means. It is a means of allowing us to get closer to God, and it is far from being the only one.

One of the things that I have learned increasingly in recent years is that people are different. Intellectually, I think that most of us know this even if we resort to stereotyping as a way of simplification. I do wonder, however, how many people realise the extent of the differences and how they affect people's world-view. The phrase I catch myself using is "but most people would think that". It is, I suspect, more often wrong than right.

For some people silence and solitude come naturally. Their soul sings whenever they have the opportunity to spend time with nothing but their own thoughts. For others solitude is a long, slow death. The important thing here is not to get hung up on the techniques, but rather to look firmly towards the goal. Spending time getting to know the heart of God.

In his book, Courageous Leadership, Bill Hybels writes

Years ago I notice that various leaders whom I respected went about their walks with God in vastly different ways. The variety was stunning to me. I started to keep a mental list of all their different approaches. Then I came across a book called Sacred Pathways, written by Gary Thomas which further pushed my thinking on this subject.

Sacred pathways are like doors which open into a room where we can feel particularly close to God. Just as different leaders have different personalities and combinations of gifts so they have many different spiritual pathways.

The challenge to me from Bill Hybels book was not directly to spend more time in silence, but rather to explore the way that I relate to God. To find the things that make my spiritual life blossom, and then to order my life so that I can spend as much time pursuing them. On one thing Jamieson and Hybels agree. Spending time in this place is not self-indulgence, it is essential.

All of the concepts I am exploring seem to revolve around this core point. Finding the kingdom, being transformed, repenting, serving, dying to self: all start with a journey into the heart of God. I'm still struggling with my spiritual pathways, but it is a rewarding struggle. One that I thoroughly recommend...

The powerhouse of silence...

After his baptism the second act that Jesus undertakes before commencing his ministry is to withdraw into the desert and fast. We are not told what he did for most of this time, but I think we can make a good guess. Throughout the gospels we find Jesus periodically withdrawing to quiet, lonely places to spend time alone with God.

Mark 1 verse 35 is a good example: "Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed." In the short yet powerful book, Out of Solitude, Henri Nouwen makes the following observation on this verse:

The more I read this silent sentence locked in between the loud words of action, the more I sense that the secret of Jesus' ministry is hidden in the lonely place where he went to pray, early in the morning, long before dawn. In the lonely place, Jesus finds the courage to follow God's will and not his own; to speak God's word and not his own; to do God's work and not his own.

The time Jesus spends in his father's presence is the powerhouse for his ministry. It is how he centres himself on his purpose.

I am currently working my way through the book Finding Sanctuary by Christopher Jamieson (the Abbot of Worth Abbey). The book, subtitled Monastic steps for Every Day Life, is a remarkably accessible look at applying the Rule of St Benedict to ordinary living. In it Jamieson describes quietness as the carpet of our personal sanctuary.

Silence is not an end in itself; it is there to let inner silence grow so that the inner life might flourish. A gardening analogy may help here: if you have not been used to silence, the first thing you will notice when you enter into it are the distractions inside yourself - the weeds. Even when you pull them up and throw them away, they grow back again quickly and you wonder why you bothered. But you need to keep weeding in order to let the flowers grow. The flowers in this case are the words from God that can grow if you have cleared a space for them.

Over the last couple of weeks I have been experimenting with this. Trying to weave silence into my life. It has not been easy; there are distractions from without and within. Jamieson suggests starting with five minutes a day and working up from this. Most days I fail even my five minutes. The clamour of my head is just too loud. Yet in persevering I am beginning to see some of the benefit. Moving towards God does not offer any easy answers, but it does provide a new perspective. The kingdom does not reveal itself easily, but perhaps the process of searching for it is required to change us so we can dwell in it?