7C The Sound and Music of Silence, Kings 19:1-4, 5-7, 8-15a, June 19, 2022, St. Mark’s Episcopal Church Joanna Seibert
Thomas Keating, one of the leaders of the revival of contemplative or centering prayer, writes, “Silence is God’s first language; everything else is a poor translation.”1 Many years ago, Keating’s message gets my attention. I long to spend time in silence, but the busyness of our lives prevents it. I have this committee in my head that likes to run the show, especially when I try to quiet my mind, body, and spirit. I see how silence has changed the lives of friends. I will not give up./
Music quiets my soul. I start listening to the popular Chant series of Gregorian chants. My mind is quieted, but am I doing it all wrong? Is music keeping us from silence? Sometime later, I pick off my shelf/the book accompanying Chant. Its title is The Music of Silence. Interesting. This companion book to the chants is an invitation to journey through the day by keeping the monastic hours in some form. Each of the eight hours is prayerfully described, using the images of the Fra Angelico angels.
Two cards drop out of, The Music of Silence, both from deceased spiritual friends. The one from Nyna Keeton is an encouraging note about writing. Another from Joanne Meadors is on a card from San Marco Museum in Florence depicting the Fra Angelico angel beating the drum. Cards of angels playing the harp and the trumpet from another spiritual friend also drop out of the book.
There is even a photograph of the musical Fra Angelico Angels on the altarpiece of Pierce Chapel at Trinity Cathedral. This book, the cards, led me on a journey to Florence solely to see these angels. Also, between the pages of the book is a Forward Day by Day pamphlet about following the monastic hours. One of our young children picked it up from a tract rack at All Saints Russellville many years ago when we visited Pat Murray, their priest there, and friends from Cursillo. Our younger son, John, brought the pamphlet to me and said, “Mom, I think you will like this.”/
Our third-grade son, Fra Angelico angels, The Music of Silence introduces me to praying the hours over thirty years ago. Later, I read Phyllis Tickle’s writings about keeping the monastic hours.
A book full of angels, a young son, a search for silence, a book full of memories still being communicated from spiritual friends I no longer see physically—calling me to the spiritual life of connection and silence.
This has been my road to silence. I long for it, but there no longer seemed time for it. Instead, with the help of art, friends, and family,/ the Holy Spirit leads me to music to quiet my soul, then introduces a daily prayer routine to quiet the mind. I confess I still have spurts and stops with the Daily Hours, but I am changed when I can do it./ Today, our children are grown with their own children, and my husband and I have hours of daily silence. I hope Nyna is pleased that I spend a great deal of time writing in the silence. Writing has become my best prayer and spiritual practice for the present. Experience tells me this can change./
This is how the Holy Spirit has worked in my life, knowing I am not ready for certain practices, so introducing me to others until it is time.
A longing for silence, however, has always been the driver. The famous Simon and Garfunkel song “The Sound of Silence” lives in my head whenever I hear it. It explores the difficulty of communicating truth, so we will hear it. While we may believe that truth is told in the booming shouts of the powerful,/ in fact, it is often uttered in the whispers of the vulnerable:/ “The words of the prophets / Are written on the subway walls / And tenement halls / And whispered in the sound of silence.”
Much earlier than Garfunkel, Elijah’s experience from
I Kings tells us the same story. Elijah is scared and exhausted. He flees to the desert, attempting to escape his calling, overwhelmed by the task ahead, mistakenly believing he alone must eradicate idolatry./ God then answers Elijah by feeding him for the journey and coaxing him out of his cave with a powerful wind, earthquake, fire, and finally with the “sound of sheer silence.” In silence, Elijah encounters God and receives direction. God later instructs Elijah to return to his ministry and mentor a new prophet, Elisha. Elijah must complete his part of the task at hand, but God assures him there are others called to the ministry as well. God never intended for Elijah to carry the full weight of challenging the halls of power on his own shoulders. /
Does this story speak to you? It does to me. Elijah’s encounter with God/ in the sound of sheer silence/ tells us God offers us that same nourishment and hope as we peer out from our caves, overwhelmed by the work God has left for us to do. When dismayed, we need only remember where to listen for God’s voice. We are to seek silence.2
Our Community of Hope training taught us that our church is like a wheel. The hub is silence, community, prayer, worship, Eucharist, spiritual practices, and a rule of life. Our different pastoral ministries are spokes radiating from that hub that generates our momentum and growth. The rim represents the Trinity that Michael talked about last week. Our Triune God, whose love and constant presence nourishes, circles, and sustains us. This was Elijah’s story, and it is ours as well.
In silence, we begin to live in the moment, which is the only moment we have. God meets us in that present moment, not in the past or future, but in the present. The past is irretrievable. The future is unknowable. In the present, we connect to the Christ within ourselves and the Christ within our neighbor.3/
I hope my story tells you that finding silence is not an instant experience. It is a process similar to settling impurities in a glass of water. At first, the impurities swirl around, making the water cloudy and opaque. But if we go with the flow, don’t interfere with the glass, let the Spirit lead us, the impurities settle. The water becomes still and clear. When the water is opaque, the water reflects. When it is clear, we can see right through it. 4
Joan Chittister reminds us that silence has two functions. The development of outer silence leads to a sense of inner peace. Inner silence then provides the stillness/ that enables/ the ear of the heart/ to hear the God/ who is not in the “powerful wind, earthquake, fire, but in the “sound of sheer silence.”5/
I offer to you my journey and longing for silence. I encourage you to spend time with silence. Do not be afraid of it. It is a friend. If this is not the time for silence in your life, let the Holy Spirit lead you to other spiritual practices, as it did for me. But do not give up on Silence. It is a straight path to living in the present moment, the dwelling place of God in our mind, body, and spirit. So, join me for a moment as we briefly honor and give thanks for God’s gift of silence./ Quiet your mind by being aware of your breath,/ in and out. With each breath, pray for the Holy Spirit to come into your life. Come, Holy Spirit, Come.
Joanna Seibert
1Thomas Keating in Invitation to Love: The Way of Christian Contemplation (Bloomsbury Academic, 1994).
2 Elizabeth Evans, “Living by the Word, June 19 Ordinary 12C, 1 Kings 19:1-15a,” Christian Century, May 24, 2022.
3The Community of Hope International Lay Pastoral Caregiver Notebook, “Module Five: Prayer, Christian Meditation, and Silence, 2013.
4Laurence Freeman in Christian Meditation: Your Daily Practice(Medio Media 1996).
5Joan Chittister in The Rule of Benedict: A Spirituality for the 21st Century, p. 195.