Listening in Silence

by Arie C. Leder

“Remember when ministers used to begin the service with ‘The Lord is in his holy temple, let all the earth be silent before him.’? I’m glad we no longer hear that. Silence?!? We have noisy, happy-clappy worship. Doomy-gloomy worship is so, like, yesterday.”

Just before the sermon we were treated to a series of video clips: traffic congestion, busy highways, planes taking off, arguments. Noise after noise after noise. The hustle and bustle of modern life. Then, clips of rustic scenes, quiet waters, hills and vales, birds chirping. Noise and silence. Contemporary life and nature not shaped by human culture. The juxtaposition of clips laid the foundation for the message: we need silence.

The bitter silence of a friend after that argument; the wasting silence of your daughter’s coma; the unending silence after your spouse’s death. Devastating! No voice. Not even a disappointed or angry voice. Without another voice we dissolve into ourselves. Words spoken to and around us, pull us out of our natural self-absorption. All the more when we hear heaven speak.

That’s what it was about when that minister proclaimed Habakkuk 2:20 at the beginning of the worship service: let all the earth be silent to listen to the one authentic Voice among the many voices that clamor for our attention.

Silence matters. Even more so the voice you listen to in that silence.

Silence is good, again
Recent emphasis on spirituality has made silence a good thing, again. Diana Butler Bass’ “Silent Treatment. Contemplative Worship” (Christian Century, September 19, 2006) and Phil Reinders’ “Eight Days of Silence” (The Banner, November 2006) describe how spiritual traditions (Benedictine, Ignatian, the mysticism of Eckhart, St. John the Evangelist, Quaker) can enhance the corporate worship and personal spirituality of Reformation tradition believers.

Both authors point to a silence that is filled with prayer, Scripture reading and reflection. It is a not speaking that is open to the voice of God. Butler Bass describes two churches, an Episcopalian and a Presbyterian. About the latter she writes: “At Sunday services, . . . the focus is on prayer, the reading of the word and preaching. Silence serves as a spiritual white space between the words, allowing each person to hear the word within.” (29)

That is, of course, the issue, the word you hear in the spaces. What shapes that hearing? The words on either side of the white space? Or, what? It is difficult enough to listen and hear the words that have been read, never mind the spaces in between.

The art of listening to the Voice of God
One of the basic tools of pastoral care is listening, listening to others. Not merely hearing a voice, but listening for the problem, the joy, the grief that the voice seeks to express. Such listening is a skill that needs to be learned. And the necessary knowledge of self. Without such self-knowledge and the listening skills pastors easily transfer their own problems onto the person needing ministry. They fill the silence, so to speak, with their own problems, the noise of their own souls, and do not hear the voice of grief, disappointment in the faith, or anger at a sudden death.

Reinders’ description of his eight day retreat points to this problem: the bad thoughts about a fellow retreater. “Reminds me of the frightful part of silence, how it quickly reveals an ugly, judgmental underbelly in me. I’m thinking these unholy things about the lady pacing upstairs, and there’s another guy who I already don’t like. Why? We’re not saying anything, so what could we have done? What’s wrong is not him but me. This is a directed retreat . . . ” (19)

Total silence is not good. It’s frightening and devastating. Thus spiritual directors are crucial for a successful retreat and edifying worship. It’s not merely a matter of filling in the blanks any way you want. Without guidance silence becomes fertile ground for spiritual narcissism.

And, of course, it’s not merely a matter of leaving the noisy contemporary world behind; you always take it with you, even as Phil Reinders took his MP3 along to listen to Alison Krauss. The monks in the desert knew that, and their world was hardly as noisy as ours. It’s about your heart and mine. The noise that fills it for no good. That’s why people in worship and on retreat always take Scripture. Its words can fill the heart for good. Never mind the white spaces in between.

Let leaders of worship read the words of Scripture and lead the prayers with great care, so that we who gather in silence before the Great King may hear his Voice clearly.