Some Lessons of Silence...

Since my retirement in June of 2015, we have been primarily attending a Quaker Meeting.
As you might guess, there are extended periods of silence in a Sunday morning Friends worship service. It takes some getting used to. I'm still learning...

Learning Some Lessons of Silence.

I asked some friends what lessons they had learned from silence.
They offered up some good answers:
-I am small, yet not insignificant.
-Silence is golden. (Let is all share in the wealth.)
-Silence is not golden in the face of evil.
-Silence allows me to hear God.
-Silence forces me to look inward and allows me to touch the core of my blessings.
-Silence is the element in which great things fashion themselves together.
-Silence asks nothing of me, but itself.


For 41 years, from 1974 till 2015, I was a United Methodist minister…and in United Methodist worship…for the most part…silence is deadly. Even times of silent prayer are very brief, at least by Quaker standards.

And for ten years beginning in the mid-1970s I co-hosted a weekly half-hour television show…and on television programs…silence is deadly. Our Director always got anxious and gave us the high-sign to keep it rolling whenever there was a dead-spot during taping.

And for five years in the 1980s I hosted a weekly radio program…and in radio…silence is deadly. I was told many times not to let there be dead-space during my half-hour program. So I played soft jazz and offered my observations on daily life...with no silence.

And for three years in the late 1990s I taught philosophy and religion classes for the Vincennes University extension in Indianapolis. My job was to lead students in the exploration of those subjects...mostly through lectures and class discussions. Silence on my part would not have gotten the job done.

So the Friends Meeting is introducing me to the other side of silence…the side that isn’t deadly.

Ram Dass, the author and spiritual teacher says this: "The quieter you become, the more you hear."

In the Bible…the 46th Psalm to be exact…there is this:
“Be still and know that I am God.”

We’ve all heard that phrase…many times over.
"Be still, and know that I am God.”

Be still...and know.

In his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, the Irish poet, playwright, and translator, Seamus Heaney, said this:

“The true and durable path into and through experience involves being true to the actual givens of your lives. True to your own solitude, true to your own secret knowledge. Because oddly enough, it is that intimate, deeply personal knowledge 
that links us most vitally 
and keeps us most reliably connected to one another.”

"True to your own solitude, true to your own secret knowledge."

All of the above leads me to affirm that there are times...important times...in life when
Silence is just what the doctor ordered...
Silence is good for what ails us.

And this:
In the delicate dance

Of Hopes and Dreams…

Of Fears and Anxieties…

Of Courage, Wisdom, and Calm…

Of Life, Death, Tragedy, and Loss…

Of Celebration and Sorrow…

Of Passion, Anger, and Emptiness…

In all of this and more

The Creator  can be known in the

Language of Silence.


In the secrets we ponder as to

How Love grows, and

Where Grace flows, and 

The darkness and 

The Light that overcomes it, and

What keeps the Life Blood flowing, and

How the Spirit whispers to the Soul, and

All things Bright and Beautiful…

In all of this and more

The Creator can be known in the

Language of Silence.


Do this:

Be silent.
Breathe.

“Be still and know…”

(Thanks to friends Charles Wilfong, Karen Roberts, Ronnie Robinson, Allen Wilson, P.T. Wilson, Dan Carpenter, and John Riggs for some of the thoughts in the post.)

Deja Vu...

I am confident that some, if not the majority, of what will appear here...in a post made in March of 2019...has appeared in other of my posts over the ten years I have been doing this blog-thing.

Hence, Deja Vu.  Or, as Yogi Berra famously said...

Here are some one-liners that I have believed are true...and continue to believe are true.

-By taking a new path, we will find new possibilities.
-In the midst of every-day life, we will find God.
-We are more than do.

-Every life takes great courage to live.
-That the most important things in life aren’t figured out, measured, or spelled out in concepts and propositions.
-It's not where we stand that’s most important, it's what direction we’re moving.
-Celebrate Diversity not Division

 Opportunity not Opposition

 Advantages not Adversaries.
-It’s okay to be a lone wolf sometimes.
-You don’t need to know every detail to succeed.
-Don’t settle for skimming the surface of life.  All the good stuff is below that.
-A healthy and living theology leaves room for our changing understanding of God…and God’s continuing revelation.
-To do something, you’ve got to start at the beginning.

-The big picture is nothing other than many smaller pictures brought together.

-You never really know what you think you know…until you do know.
-The powers that be never want to change.
-It's only “Good Advice” if it points to the truth.
-There’s more than one way to do just about anything.
-Always be aware of your surroundings…and who you are surrounding yourself with.
-You can change the things that you can change…but you will have to work at it; and it may not happen over-night.
-There are lessons to be learned from both fear and bravery.
-When you lose, don’t lose the lesson.
-Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly.
-The truth is the truth no matter who speaks it.
-If it doesn’t look like love, no amount of words can make it otherwise.
-Consider how hard it is to change yourself and you’ll understand what little chance you have in trying to change others.
-You only really know where you are going when you get there.
-If something makes you uncomfortable, try looking at it differently.
If it still makes you uncomfortable, leave it alone.
-To do something, you’ve got to start at the beginning.

-Silence is sometimes the best answer.
-The best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.
-Anyone not willing to risk is not really willing to live.

-It's important to find ourselves in harmony with God’s activity in the world.
-We either get better or get worse…and it's always the right thing to choose getting better.
-Whatever there is of God and God's Kingdom does not come from beyond nor from the long, long ago...it is already within us; there for the taking, if we so choose.


So there it is. There they are.
Some one-liners that I have believed are true...and continue to believe are true.