The Silence Problem

Today at college we thought about the value of silence in our prayer lives. The trouble is that I am not very good at silence. I would be one of the members of the audience who during John Cage's 4'33 is making the music. I'd be shuffling, whispering to my neighbour, opening sweets, moving my chair, clicking my pen (don't you hate it when people do that?). Any silence in my house is interrupted by television or music or the world of facebook or twitter (although silent in sound they are noisy in the way they demand time). 

We watched 15 minutes of a three hour video of a silent monastery (thank goodness we didn't watch more!). I was surprised at the way the idea of the life in the monastery attracted people in my class. They were attracted by the rhythmic life, the space just to be with God, the monastery as a place to run away to and the slow pace of life. To be honest, I couldn't see the appeal of all that because I was distracted by the lack of colour in the surroundings, whether the language in the book one of the monks was reading was in Hebrew and the monk, who when the bell was going for lunch, walked really slowly (seemingly not to notice that the bell wouldn't stop until he got there - I wanted to shout at him!).

Perhaps though, there is some value in silence. I got some magnetic scrabble letters for Christmas that sit on top of my fridge. One frantic day a few weeks ago I wrote 'Be Still and Know that I am God' with the letters. It's still there and these words from Psalm 46 remind me that sometimes I need to stop, even if just for a few seconds, remember that God is there and make space to be still in his presence. 

Could that be what real silence is about?