The Slow Way: On Silence and Connective Community
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unhurried thoughts
If I cannot receive the gifts of the Spirit in silence, I will never be able to receive them in any other way. Often I understand that the strange dark bird has been with me only when I am turned again and look back...and realize that the No of God when I felt most deserted, was a Spirit-filled No preparing me for a Yes.
-Madeleine L'Engle
On Silence and Connective Community
This week I listened to a podcast interview with Barbara Holmes, theologian and contemplative/activist and author of several books that focus on African American spirituality, mysticism, and culture.
The Encountering Silence Podcast is hosted by three white folks. So I found it interesting that when Holmes, a black woman, was asked about silence in the work of prayer and contemplation, she reminded her conversation partners that speaking of “silence” can be problematic when it comes to marginalized communities that have a history of being forced into silence by their oppressors. She spoke about how contemplation, as it is most often understood in a culturally white subtext, is understood as “an individual practice, sitting alone in prayer.” But in her experience “the contemplative practices in Black and Native American and many other cultural communities is communal,” she said, as opposed to what we think of when we equate contemplative practice with “the isolated monastic."
So what does it mean to think about silence as something outside of individuality? How can we lean into the quiet spaces of contemplative life as a community?
A couple of months ago, inspired by some friends who have done their best to set healthy limits for their kids and technology, Chris and the kids and I began practicing a technology sabbath on Sundays. We turn our devices off (or in the case of our phones, set them aside) from Saturday night until Sunday night. This sabbath is HARD for me. I feel the inner nudge to check social media every time I walk past the phone on my dresser in my bedroom. Just pick it up and look. What if someone needs me? And amazingly, every time I try to keep my restless hands off that phone I realize I need five things from Amazon that I must immediately order. (Why does making a shopping list feel so antiquated and impossible?)
But, when I can shake off the inner-nudge toward all the machines all around me, the silence eases up, releases its suffocating grip, and somehow transforms into a warm covering.
Here's what I'm learning: It’s true that I really am less productive when I don’t have my phone. I just don’t get as much done when I have no earbuds in to tell me stories while I clean the house. Without a phone I am less likely to spend my Sunday afternoon cleaning out the closets because I don’t like to clean out closets in silence. I want to be entertained when I do monotonous chores. So that also means I have not been folding clothes on Sundays while the phone stays plugged in on my side table.
But you know what I am more likely to do? Work in the garden, where the sky and sounds are entertainment enough. Go for a walk with my family. Sit and read an actual book with a tasty drink. Play a game with my kids.
When the phone and computer and background music are gone, silence rearranges the entire day. That’s what I’m learning. If I want to rest, I actually need to begin with silence. Silence gives me permission to quiet my body as well as the world around me. Silence allows me to stop moving and doing. It’s the doorway we walk through into the intentionally slow life.
This past Sunday when all five of us sat in the living room together, August, Brooks and Chris reading around me, and Ace playing on the floor, we were living out a practice of communal silence. Together we were imperfectly attempting to embrace something that feels near-impossible to find in the world right now. And we couldn’t have had silence if we hadn’t chosen it.
Of course everyone is cranky without their devices, myself included. But what silence gives us collectively is the opportunity to see each other and honor each other in this moment. That silence allowed our combined rest: my feet sharing the ottoman with Brooksie's feet, August's head on my shoulder, three very different books in our hands (B's Harry Potter, my Braiding Sweetgrass and Aug's horror fiction du jour). Chris with his legs crossed in the chair across the room and Ace delicately dropping plastic jewels into a cup. The five o'clock nearly-spring sunshine pouring vanilla through the windows.
Silence is a tricky thing, one that can oppress, isolate, or muffle. But it is also a sort of gateway that opens us up to simplicity, slowness, and prayer. Together, in community, it can be a teacher in what it means to settle ourselves, a way to remember that we aren’t what we produce, or what we accomplish. Mostly we are people who need to be with one another, who need to love and be loved.
I’ve been sitting with Madeleine L’Engle’s words this week. "If I cannot receive the gifts of the Spirit in silence, I will never be able to receive them in any other way.” Let's make that "I" a communal "We."
Maybe the gifts of the Spirit do come in silence, when we’re still enough to listen. Maybe that “Strange Dark Bird” has been in our presence all along, but it’s only when we silence the machines around us that we learn how to listen, together.
a slow practice
The practice of silence doesn't have to be fancy. This week I listened to Emily P. Freeman's most recent episode on The Next Right Thing Podcast. She talked about creating a life-giving wind-down routine before bed. She reminded me (and she always does this so well) that the best rituals are the simple ones.
If you want to practice silence in your life and you know it's impossible because you have 18 children under the age of five, then good grief, I agree. Otherwise, think matter-of-factly about when you do have quiet, when it actually is possible. For me, that's pretty much only early in the morning and late at night.
Can you find those moments and choose to lean in to silence then? Can you give yourself five minutes of silence before you scroll your phone or turn on the morning news podcast? Or what about bedtime? What are you using to fill the space in the air when things quiet down around you? And what would happen if you don't fill it, on purpose, for five minutes?
Your assignment, if you're up for it, is to practice a routine of silence for five minutes a day this week. Maybe while you wash your face and brush your teeth before bed. Maybe for the first five minutes of your run. Maybe when you take those first few sips of your coffee.
Here's the thing about spiritual practices. The ones that transform us usually do so slowly. So no need for miraculous words from above in the silence. All that's needed is your willingness to let the silence sit there awkwardly beside you. That "Strange Dark Bird" you just can't see until it's already gone.