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.)