Posted on by Kurt Bodling

silence and humility

“The ninth step of humility is achieved when a monk, practicing silence, only speaks when asked a question, for, ‘In many words you shall not avoid sin’ (Prov. 10:15). And, ‘A talkative man shall not prosper upon the earth’ (Ps. 140:11).”

Saint Benedict. The Rule of St. Benedict. Translated, with introduction and notes by Anthony C. Meisel and M.L. del Mastro. NY : Doubleday, 1975, Chapter 7, page 60.

Note: Interesting to note that, while chapter 6 of the Rule is about Silence, St. Benedict includes this point about silence in chapter 7. Chapter 7 is on Humility.

There are so, so many times when it would have been better to bite our tongues and not say something that sprang to mind. Oh, yes, there absolutely are times when we should speak out, when we should call someone out, when we should ask hard questions, name names, and so on. Mostly in defense of someone else. But the way of humility sometimes is the way of silence. And humility doesn’t mean meekly accepting abuse.

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

St. Benedict on silence

“Let us do as the prophet says: ‘I have said: I will keep my ways so that I will not offend with my tongue. I have guarded my speech. I have held my peace and humbled myself and was silent, even from speaking good things’ (Ps. 39:1-2). Here the prophet demonstrates that if we are not to speak of good things, for the sake of silence, it is even more vital that we should not speak of evil lest we sin, for we shall be punished for that as a sin. No matter how perfect the disciple, nor how good and pious his speech he rarely should be given permission to speak for: ‘In much speaking, you shall not escape sin’ (Prov. 10:19). The master should speak and teach, the disciple should quietly listen and learn. No matter what must be asked of a superior, it must be done with humility and reverent submission. We always condemn and ban all small talk and jokes; no disciple shall speak such things.”

Saint Benedict. The Rule of St. Benedict. Translated, with introduction and notes by Anthony C. Meisel and M.L. del Mastro. NY : Doubleday, 1975, page 56.

Note: This is the whole 6th chapter; but not the only thing Benedict says about Silence in his Rule. He would today have included some proscriptions about social media, I’m sure. Including, no doubt, blogs that quote the Rule.

His condemnation here of levity probably strikes us as too harsh. But haven’t you noticed that so much of what passes for comedy and joking is done at the expense of someone else? It can really hurt and isn’t necessarily assuaged with an “Oh, I was only joking.”

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

writing, thinking, and contemplation

Note:
This author is a professor at Northeastern university. And he is definitely not writing here in a Christian or spiritual context. But I’m struck, as you probably are, how when he writes about the conditions he sets himself to improve his writing it sounds as if he is writing about conditions conducive to contemplation.

Quote:
“To avoid the easiest, most comfortable narrative of the moment, I have learned that writing … demands a special discipline.

“It requires clearing away competing noise, reserving time for deep reading and critical reflection, seeking solitude away from the constant churn of today’s argument-fueled culture.

“It requires a writer to quiet the mind, and to stop thinking about possible criticism or praise for what they write. ….

“The price of zipping around on the Web and social media is a loss in our depth of thinking, the essential trait of the intellectual and writer. …

“I choose to spend my days surrounded by the stillness of my office or within the sacred sanctuary of a library, no digital screen in sight, filling Moleskin notebooks with observations, engaged in the type of deep reading and immersion necessary to tie together insights and arguments into a fresh web of analysis.”

Source: ‘The Mindful Climate Change Writer’ by Matthew Nisbet, PhD viewed online at
https://medium.com/wealth-of-ideas/the-mindful-climate-change-writer-102ad432b283

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

silence teaches us

Note:
Maybe it’s just the contrast between the noise of the world and the silence of the soul, but it seems clear that silence teaches us to pay attention, to notice, to focus. Both to God and to the people he puts in our lives.

Quote:
“We’re constantly distracted, forever listening to a subtext that keeps us from focusing. There is so much noise in our lives–emails, texts, phone calls, Twitter notifications, Instagram notifications, Facebook updates–that we are unable to hear, to listen. Our attention is always being interrupted.

“Silence actually teaches us to listen. It helps us learn how to listen to the voice of God, a voice we maybe have not been able to recognize. It helps us listen to the people in our lives who speak loving, truthful words of correction or affirmation to us. In silence we hear the truth that God is not as hard on us as we are on ourselves.” (p. 171)

Source: Heuertz, Christopher L. The Sacred Enneagram: Finding Your Unique Path to Spiritual Growth. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2017.

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

silence isn’t empty

Note:
The spiritual discipline of silence is not an empty void. Emptiness like that could be viewed as a lack, a dearth, a gap, something missing. Spiritual silence, however, is richly full of the presence of God. In the Bible we read that Elijah seriously needed refreshment. He went off by himself (solitude!) and eventually heard the Lord speak to him in that “still small voice.”

Quote:
“At first the quiet may feel like just another place of emptiness. We may even feel a sense of dread or fear that we are going to be judged or punished for parts of ourselves we have now brought into the light of day.

“But if we stay in this moment, eventually — like Elijah — we begin to notice that this silence is qualitatively different from the emptiness we experienced before. The silence that comes after the chaos is pregnant with the presence of God.”  (p. 110)

Source: Barton, Ruth Haley. Invitation to Solitude and Silence: Experiencing God’s Transforming Presence. Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2004.

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solitude is to silence as community is to speech

Note:
Not only does Bonhoeffer tie silence and solitude together, but he also connects silence to speech. About solitude and community, remember, he said you can’t safely have one without the other; so here he would say ‘Let him who cannot be silent beware of speech. Let him who is not speaking beware of being silent.’

Quote:
“The mark of solitude is silence, as speech is the mark of community. Silence and speech have the same inner correspondence and difference as do solitude and community. One does not exist without the other. Right speech comes out of silence, and right silence comes out of speech.”

Source: Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. Life Together. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1954, page 78. (original German pub in 1939)

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

inner and outer silences together

Note: Outer silence is necessary for creating and building inner silence. And inner silence is indispensable for walking the path of the spiritual life. Throughout our day we should make recourse to the inner silence whenever we find ourselves uncentered or distracted from God.

Quote: “Outward silence is very requisite for the cultivation and improvement of inward; and, indeed, it is impossible we should become truly interior, without loving silence and retirement. God saith by the mouth of his prophet, “I will lead her into solitude, and there will I speak to her heart (Hos. ii. 14); and unquestionably the being internally engaged with God is wholly incompatible with being externally busied about a thousand trifles.”

Source: Spiritual Progress: or, Instructions in the Divine Life of the Soul from the French of Fenelon and Madame Guyon: Intended for Such as are Desirous to Count all Things Loss that they may Win Christ. Edited by James W. Metcalf. NY: M.W. Dodd, 1853; quote is from chapter 14 of Madame Guyon’s Method of Prayer.

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

adjusting to silence and solitude

Note:
It can take some time to adjust to being in solitude and silence, just as this writer describes the adjustment period a backpacker or camper needs to break away from the tyranny of the hectic city life. This adjustment period really could argue against taking short silent retreats, only a weekend long or so. It will probably take that long just to settle down and start to empty all the accumulated noise out of your head.

Quote:
“The thoughts that run in people’s heads about being late for work and what to have for dinner and what’s on TV that night, those go away in about four days to two weeks of being in the wilderness,” Douglas said. “Then you develop a more intuitive and emotional communication in your head. You eat when you’re hungry, sleep when you’re tired, and you’re mindful of weather changes.”

Source: The Bangor Daily News, 10 April 2013, an article titled “‘Hermit’ burglar compound littered with batteries, ‘tons and tons’ of propane tanks.” I no longer have the author’s name, but the person quoted here was Michael Douglas, adult programs director at Maine Primitive Skills School based in Augusta, Maine.

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

silence leading to love

Note: Happy Valentine’s Day! I have come to learn over the years to be more comfortable with silences in a relationship, either earthly ones, or the one God has with me. I think now that this is a sign of maturity and of being comfortable together. Early in a relationship, when you’re just starting out, you’re full of questions about each other and there can be long phone calls, multiple emails or texts each day, or (way back in the day) daily letters mailed. But sometimes you’re able to reach a point where it’s good to be sitting together silently watching the frogs in the pond, or sharing the couch while you’re both reading and the cat snoozes in between you, or walking together through the woods while you give the birds and insects a chance to share what’s been going on in their lives.

Quote: “My sense is that the mystery of silence draws us deeper into love, and love is something that we cannot control; love invites us into fresh ways of thinking and unfamiliar ways of being.

“Fundamentally, love is at the heart of our Christian faith tradition. God is love, and in consenting to silence, we allow Love to wash over us, inviting us into a ‘new we,’ a new kind of community that affirms the divine imprint within all humanity and contributes to building the kind of world we all want to live in.” (p. 164)

Source: Heuertz, Christopher L. The Sacred Enneagram: Finding Your Unique Path to Spiritual Growth. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2017, page 164.

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

silence as a spiritual discipline

Note: The spiritual discipline of silence – practiced to greater or lesser degrees – is of biblical origin and has been enjoined by “all writers on the spiritual life.” One wonders, then, why it seems such an odd, foreign, and difficult practice today. It casts the character of noise in a sad and sinful light, or at least emphasizes how detrimental to spiritual growth noise is. The older I’ve gotten, the more of a fan of silence I’ve become. And here’s something I’ve learned: it really is easy to create an envelope of silence to live in (don’t turn on the radio or start the video; stand aside from the pointless nattering chit-chat where people gather; seek out quieter places); what is really hard is dealing with the constant running commentary in one’s own head.

Quote:

“All writers on the spiritual life uniformly recommend, nay, command under penalty of total failure, the practice of silence. And yet, despite this there is perhaps no rule for spiritual advancement more inveighed against, by those who have not even mastered its rudiments, than that of silence. Even under the old Dispensation its value was known, taught, and practised. Holy Scripture warns us of the perils of the tongue, as “Death and life are in the power of the tongue” (Proverbs 18:21). Nor is this advice less insisted on in the New Testament; witness: “If any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man” (St. James 3:2 sq.). The same doctrine is inculcated in innumerable other places of the inspired writings.

“Silence may be viewed from a threefold standpoint:

  • As an aid to the practice of good, for we keep silence with man, in order the better to speak with God, because an unguarded tongue dissipates the soul, rendering the mind almost, if not quite, incapable of prayer. The mere abstaining from speech, without this purpose, would be that “idle silence” which St. Ambrose so strongly condemns.
  • As a preventative of evil. Seneca, quoted by Thomas à Kempis complains that “As often as I have been amongst men, I have returned less a man” (Imitation, Book I, c. 20).
  • The practice of silence involves much self-denial and restraint, and is therefore a wholesome penance, and as such is needed by all.

“From the foregoing it will be readily understood why all founders of religious orders and congregations, even those devoted to the service of the poor, the infirm, the ignorant, and other external works, have insisted on this, more or less severely according to the nature of their occupations, as one of the essential rules of their institutes.”

Source: Obrecht, Edmond. “Silence.” The Catholic Encyclopedia. Vol. 13. New York: Robert Appleton Company,1912.