Silence is Golden

Four monks decided to meditate silently without speaking for two weeks. By nightfall on the first day, the candle began to flicker and then went out. The first monk said, “Oh, no! The candle is out” The second monk said, “Aren’t we not suppose to talk?” The third monk said, “Why must you two break the silence?” The fourth monk laughed and said, “Ha! I’m the only one who didn’t speak.”


While silence sounds simple, it is far from easy and don't we all like to point out when others fall short of the mark...we all break the silence...

I have fond memories of childhood birthday party games when quite often we would play sleeping lions or statues or silence. We became very competitive over these games. We reacted just like those four monks. As soon as someone made a noise, we would begin one by one to point out that they had broken the silence. Yep I have no doubt that a six year is at least if not more enlightened than any monk. To be still and to be silent is no easy task for anyone, whether you are child who's eaten too much sugar or a monk in search of enlightenment.

During a recent session of the “12 Steps to a Compassionate Life” reading group I decided to give space for silence. We were looking at the fifth step “Mindfullness”.  There has been a lot of lively and intimate conversations during these groups and we have spent a long time listening to one another. In this step it is suggested that we invite someone to lead the group in mindfulness meditation but I decided to keep it simpler and thought we would benefit from sitting in silence together, if only for ten minutes. It went well, we all gained from that time and I believe that it enabled us to engage more deeply for the rest of the session. The space enabled us to listen to one another, to follow Kahlil Gibran’s direction and “Let the voice within your voice speak to the ear of his ear.”

Before I began attending Unitarian worship I explored a variety of other religious communities. I attended several churches, meditation at local Brahma Kumaris and Buddhist centres, as well as Quaker meeting for worship. I had become a bit of a religious tourist I suppose. I was also reading lots of “New Age” literature such as the “Conversations With God” series by Neale Donald Walsch, “The Power of Now” by Ekhart Tolle and other similar writers. I was trying to make sense of the life transforming spiritual experiences that had occurred over a period of a few months. I settled on the Quakers for a while, I liked where they were coming from, their approach to religion, which seemed very open and humble. After a while I sensed that something just didn’t feel right about it though. I wanted to do something, I wanted to be involved, I wanted to sing and move perhaps. Maybe something was quaking inside, perhaps if I’d allowed this to flow free I may never have discovered Unitarianism, but I did not. I did not wander down that road. Instead I continued to search and discovered Cross Street Chapel in Manchester and the rest is history. The ethos and approach to religion I found there was very similar to the Quakers and yet somehow I found Unitarian worship more engaging. There was focus, if a varied one, that I was able to relate to. I also rediscovered my voice during worship, I began to sing again. When I sing I feel oh so close to God, this seemed to be missing in Quaker worship. I know today that I am just too noisy and energetic to be a Quaker.

By the way this is in no way a criticism of the Quakers, who are the most beautiful people; I just know that I am not one. I also believe that silence has a vital role in worship. We share a time of communal silence each Sunday during worship. I lead a regular singing meditation, which is about the sharing and intermingling of of the human voice and silence. I engage with other forms of meditation too, both with others and on my own. I love silence; I love stillness. I truly appreciate those words from the 46th Psalm “Be still and know that I am God”. This is an internal experience I believe; it’s about faith and trust. It is serenity; it is calm in the storm. Meditative practise helps me develop this stillness in my daily life. It helps me to be present, it helps me to connect.

 Many people find silence challenging, especially extended periods in company with others. How do you feel when you sit with people and suddenly everything goes quiet? How do you feel when no one speaks? It’s uncomfortable isn’t it? We want someone to break the silence and of course usually someone does so, with an anxious or awkward remark.

Silence is vital and we need not fear it, instead we should befriend it, we need not fill the space between our bodies or our words.

I have learnt, over the past few years, to befriend the silence. I have to say that at first I found it embarrassing, rather silly actually, but then I did not really understand its purpose. I had a very busy mind in those days and I did not like the thoughts that would often appear. In time those thoughts settled, became manageable and the silence began to speak to me. I found these moments of silence inspirational. I found clarity and the ability to make sane decisions in the silence. I believe that during this time my connection to God, to the ground of all being, to that which runs through and connects all life, developed in the space of silence. The still small voice voice of conscience deep within began to develop during this time. What the Quakers describe as “That of God in everyone”

During the Gospel accounts there are several depictions of Jesus going off on his own, to pray, to embrace silence. At the beginning of his ministry he spends 40 days and nights in the wilderness alone, where he comes face to face with temptation. In Mark 10 vv 30-46, Jesus spends time preaching, teaching and then feeding the crowd that gathered around him. It is worth noting that before he does so he and the disciples attempt to spend time in solitude and afterwards he goes off to pray alone. It would seem that he knew that to be of service to and for others he had to spend time alone, he needed to nourish himself spiritually.

The great sages understood the need for silence. The Sufi mystical poet Rumi wrote “Silence is the root of everything...if you spiral into its void, a hundred voices will thunder messages you long to hear.” Kahlil Gibran said “silence is painful, but in silence things take form, and we must wait and watch. In us, in our secret depth, lies the knowing element which sees and hears that which we do not see nor hear. All our perception, all the things we have done, all that we are today, dwelt once in that knowing, silent depth, that treasure chamber in the soul. And we are more than we think. We are more than we know. That which is more than we think and know is always seeking and adding to itself while we are doing -  or think we are doing -  nothing. But to be conscious of what is going on in our depth is to help it along. When sub-consciousness becomes consciousness, the seeds in our winter-clad selves turn to flowers, and the silent life in us sings with all its might.”

“Silence is Golden” it is so vital to the active life. We all need time alone, in silence, in solitude; a time to commune with that greater reality, a time alone with God; a time alone with our deeper selves. Prayer and meditation is as vital to me today as air, food and water. My body and mind cannot function without these elements; my body and mind cannot maintain good health without my soul being fed by prayer and meditation.

The spiritual and religious life has to be both active and open. To give ourselves fully to the lives we live, we need to ensure that we ourselves are in fit spiritual condition. Therefore like the great sages sometimes we all need to wander off into the wilderness, commune with our God and feed our souls.

Drop Thy still dews of quietness,

Till all our strivings cease;

Take from our souls the strain and stress,

And let our ordered lives confess

The beauty of Thy peace.

The Road Not Taken: Choose Life

A few weeks ago I was invited to lead worship at the chapel where I first discovered Unitarianism, Cross Street in Manchester - It was a life changing event the day I chose to walk into Cross Street, a path I never dreamed I would tread – That day I felt completely connected to everything. I felt that life, the universe, that God, was speaking to me in and through all that I encounted; that everything was deep and rich in meaning. One of those special days, I’m sure that we’ve all had them.

After the service I bumped into a member of the Altrincham congregation Ann Molyneaux, who was at Cross Street to play with the Alberti piano group she is a member of. I briefly said hello to Ann as we passed in the foyer and then I tootled off into Manchester to do a little shopping. I thought I’d treat myself, hey why not.

 After an hour or so I decided it was time to go home and got on the tram in Piccadilly. A couple of stops later Ann got on the tram herself. I called out to her as she passed me and we sat and chatted for a while. It seems that Ann had been doing some shopping too. She held the poem “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost, in her hand.

“The Road Not Taken” truly is an everyman poem; it speaks such a universal truth. How often in life do we all meet that fork in the road and have to make a decision, often not an easy one, to walk down that road to who knows where? Of course for every road that we take, there is at least one other road that we do not take and I am sure that we all wonder, from time to time, where that road may well have led.

Now of course in every moment of our lives we have to make small almost insignificant decisions. We often make them without really thinking, they are purely instinctive. That said there are other decisions that we make that are monumental and life changing. I suspect in the poem, this fork in the road is one of those big moments, those life changing moments. Of course when making these decisions we cannot have the gift of foresight. Like the path in the poem we can only see so far ahead. The future truly is unwritten, we cannot know for certain what is to come. Would it help if we did?

I visited my granddad the other day, it was his 89^th birthday. It was a joy to sit and talk with him, if only for a short time. He talked about how we can never predict the future. How as a young man he and his best friend Percy had gone to sea together, to serve in the war. My granddad came back, but Percy did not. They both chose that same path, not that they had too much say in it, but only one of them carried on through this physical journey. My granddad has lived a long life and has experienced so much. He has made many decisions and I know for sure that he has made numerous mistakes. What was clear to me during the conversation was how much he respected the privilege and opportunity that his life has been, something denied to so many others. Life truly is the greatest gift of all, it is the ultimate grace. It is a privilege that we did nothing to deserve.

 “The Road Not Taken” ends with the immortal words “I shall be telling this with a sigh somewhere ages and ages hence; two roads diverged in a wood, and I took the one less travelled by, and that has made all the difference.”

The poem ends with this sense of not living with regret. It is about taking the path that will make all the difference; about taking the more challenging path. The path less taken is the one that will lead to the deep and meaningful life, but it won’t be trouble free.

It brings to my mind the journey that the Israelites took to the Promised Land. In Deuteronomy 30 vv 11-19 Moses speaks to the people on his 120^th birthday. God had just informed him that he would not enter the Promised Land with the people he had led out of exile.

As they reach the Promised Land the people gathered to receive Moses’ final blessing. And what does he say? He tells them that they must “choose life.” They are told that in order to keep the freedom that they have been given they must make thoughtful choices. I am sure that this must have been scary for them, for after all they were frightened of their freedom. Throughout their time in exile whenever they were given freedom they did not want it, they hoped that someone would make their decisions for them. Again this is such a universal predicament, it echoes through the ages. How often do we wish that someone would make our decisions for us? Wouldn’t that make life easier?

Now "Choose Life" is a phrase that has seeped into public consciousness on at least two occasion over the last 30 years. Two places that would at first glance seem highly unlikely.

One was in a "Wham" pop video to the song "Wake me up before you go-go". I feel fairly confident in claiming that George Michael, Andrew Ridgley and Pepsi & Shirley didn't know they were quoting Moses when they were dancing along to this song.

It is also the inspiration for a poem by John Hodge that was spoken by Ewan McGregor to the tune for "Lust For Life" by Iggy Pop at the beginning of the film "Trainspotting". A film that is definitely not about "choosing Life", as its a film about heroin addiction.

By the way those decision makers, those forces, may not all be external to us. How many of us are led by long established habits that seemingly do our choosing for us? How do we escape from the grip of these habits and compulsions?  How do we find the freedom to choose life?

To leave the comfort zone of our established way of being often appears terrifying; after all this is the way we’ve always done things. To wander down an uncertain path, the one rarely travelled down, does appear frightening. No doubt it will be uncomfortable and uneven and a little overgrown, there maybe monsters hiding in the shadows. But should we avoid this path? Should we choose the easier softer way? By avoiding the path, that is still partially grassed over are we choosing life, or are we just making things harder than they need to be? Is it better to choose caution, to just let life happen to us rather than to choose the riskier path, that forces us to engage with danger?

I believe it is better to choose life, but to do so wisely and this requires discernment.

The word discernment is formed from the Latin word “discernere”, which means to separate, to distinguish, to sort out. Just think of prospectors panning for gold or sifting through the rocks and dirt in search of gem stones. They are separating, they are sorting through the muck for what is precious, they are distinguishing, they are discerning.

Discernment is the key to making those wise choices. We need to discover what is of value and what needs to be discarded in our minds. We need to discard the dirt and muck to uncover the gold, the gems, to have clarity of thought, so that we can “choose life”. This is not easy, especially when we think of all that information that swims around in our lives and are consciousness; information like an enormous shoal of fish swimming round and round aimlessly in a small tank and not really going anywhere.

Our lives, our heads are just so full of stuff. How do we discern what is healthy, what is right? Well we need silence, we need time away from all this information and all these things that pull us in so many directions. We need time to be still, time to be silent, time to connect to our bodies and our breathing; time to hear that still small voice of calm. A voice less than a whisper, but somehow more than silence.

We need to awaken to our true consciousness in order to make those sane and sensible decisions about life. We need to learn to separate those things that are of value and those that are not. We need to do this in order to hear that voice, that is less than whisper but that is somehow more than silence; that voice that has spoken down the centuries, to those who had ears that could hear it; the voice that spoke to the people of Israel and said “I have set before you life and death, a blessing and a curse. Therefore choose life”

The choices we make matter. It matters what we are and what we do. I do not think that God chooses this for us. Yes God offers guidance, “The Lure of Divine Love” but it is up to us to choose the path that we follow. Often the most rewarding path is the one that is less worn and more over grown and perhaps seemingly more treacherous. Often it is the one that is less travelled by.

Choose life, choose the path rarely travelled down.