Embracing the silence - 1 Kings 19:1-15a - Living by the Word - Column

Christian Century, June 7, 1995 by Margaret Guenther

Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence.

It seems ironic to talk about silence in a culture where the capacity for creating noise is phenomenal and unprecedented. Our greed for sound is an addiction. Bland recorded music surrounds us in elevators and shopping malls, radios and televisions play in empty rooms. Our fear of gaps in conversation is almost palpable. We honor our heroes with 21-gun salutes and celebrate Independence Day with explosions. We wrap noise around us like a blanket, insulating ourselves from one another and from God.

Yet Scripture tells us that silence is the place of encounter with God. To wait, as Elijah did on Mt. Horeb, requires that we be attentive, that we ignore the noisy distractions and be willing to get through layers of seeming silence until we find real silence. As we wait for God in silence, we begin to notice and celebrate small, subtle things that we commonly dismiss or ignore. Julian of Norwich knew about the God of silence when she was able to see all creation in a hazelnut. Her vision is born of waiting on God in silence.

The Fathers (and possibly the Mothers) of the Egyptian desert said, "Go to your cell, and your cell will teach you everything." In other words, God can be found here, right where you are, in ordinary time and space.

It is a cop-out to blame our culture for the inaccessibility of silence. The noise that surrounds us may be an irritant and a burden, but, we resist the alternative. When we are in quiet places away from city noises, when we "abstain from the media" (a possibility suggested by Margaret Miles in Fullness of Life), even when we restrict our speaking and observe long periods without speaking at all - we still resist silence.

True silence is frightening because it leaves us receptive, open and vulnerable. It strips away our excuses and defenses.

The real culprit is inner noise. One of my friends offers the image of a bush full of unseen, chattering sparrows. Maybe, like the ammas and abbas of the Egyptian desert, we need to identify our demons. This may seem too harsh a name for those twittering sparrows of the soul, but we should not be fooled by their small size or harmless appearance.

Some sparrows roost permanently in my inner spiritual recesses: all the things I have left undone and the things I ought not to have done. These are not the sins alluded to in the General Confession, but trivia. We can crowd God out by making our daily life and work into an absorbing game of Trivial Pursuit. Even when we set aside time for quiet, maybe especially when we set aside time for quiet, those demonic sparrows start to twitter.

Our prayer of silent attentiveness is@assaulted b fleeting, distracting thoughts: remember to pick up the dry cleaning, return a phone call, take the chicken out of the freezer, jot down an idea for a sermon. We may not even find time to begin. Most of us are gifted at avoidance and creative in "the pencil sharpening syndrome." When I feel the urge to dust my bookshelves, bundle old papers for recycling and tidy my desk before settling down to wait on God in silence, I know that the sparrows are about to win. At least Elijah was willing to seek out and endure the stark solitude of the cave!

In the prayer of silent waiting on God, nothing "happens." Fire, wind and earthquake are only special effects. The essence is the silence. In that deep inner silence, we rid ourselves of nonessentials. In the fourth century Evagrius Ponticus said, "The mind must become naked." Fashion experts talk about "the layered look," which means piling several garments on top of each other for a fashion "effect." Unfortunately my mind and heart have all too often adopted the layered look in their flight from spiritual nakedness.

On Yahweh's command, Elijah left the shelter of the cave, withstood wind, earthquake and fire, then embraced the silence. Such openness to God is a tedious ascent, a courageous turning inward and a surrender.

The author is Margaret Guenther, director of the Center for Christian Spirituality at General Theological Seminary in New York and author of the forthcoming book Toward Holy Ground: Spiritual Direction for the Second Half of Life (Cowley).