An Ancient Path for a Modern World (I): Silence

I have been giving a lot of thought lately to the spiritual disciplines of the Christian faith, and especially, in particular, those disciplines that don’t normally get listed among the usual habits of a thriving Christian.  At least, they didn’t usually get mentioned in the church circles I grew up in; indeed, some of them would have been viewed with not a small amount of suspicion, smacking too much of mysticism, fanaticism, or works-righteousness.  I’m thinking here of things like: the practice of silence, fasting, meditation, listening prayer, and so on.  Practices like these are often hard to pin down; they don’t come with a money-back “guarantee of results”; and they tend to be less explicitly biblical than the more typical “read-your-Bible-pray-every-day” agenda of the thriving Christian. As such, they don’t often get top billing in the list of things that Christians ought to do, especially in the hyper-utilitarian, results-oriented, bigger-brighter-louder-better culture of North American Christianity.

And yet, many of these practices—silence, listening, fasting, prayer-vigils, meditation, simplicity, and so on—have a long, deep, rich and proven heritage in the broader Christian tradition, tracing back throughout the ages, with various examples among the early church and weighty biblical precedence among the prophets and the patriarchs.  Once you know what you’re looking for, you’ll even find them all over the place in Jesus’ daily, weekly, monthly practices, I think.

All of that is to say that for the next few months here at terra incognita, in a series I’m calling “Ancient Paths for a Modern World,” I’d like to spend some time exploring what you might call the less common but still vital disciplines of the Faith, ancient practices that don’t get much air-time in the modern North American church but are profoundly rich, rewarding disciplines for growing followers of Jesus to explore, experiment with, and develop into habits.

Take the practice of silence, as a first example.  My gut feeling is that, by-and-large, our world is dominated by what C. S. Lewis once called “the Kingdom of Noise.”  We cannot escape the constant blare of humming machines, roaring engines, blaring electronic music, incessant media interruptions, deafening Dolby-surround sound, lights, camera, action!  And my gut, further, tells me that the church has, by and large, acquiesced to the culture's insistence on making (with apologies for quoting Meatloaf and C. S. Lewis in the same paragraph) everything louder than everything else.

In this world, making space enough and time to sit, genuinely silent in the Lord’s presence, with no other agenda than simply to be still—fully still—and know that he is God, is not only rare, but it is, actually profoundly difficult.  The first time I ever tried practicing intentional silence, I found that my thoughts were bouncing around worse than a teeny-bouncer flung into a locker room (when I was in junior-high, this happened once in the boys locker room, and four guys almost lost an eye before the little rubber ball finally came to rest).  I set the timer for 15 minutes, knelt the coffee table and tried to quiet my thoughts to silence.  That teeny bouncer kept bouncing incessantly, till I gave up and looked at the clock.  Only 7 minutes had passed.

I’ve since learned some important, practical tips for developing the ability to practice silence, which I’d like to share, but before I do, let me offer a few reasons why this discipline—sitting silent, mind cleared and held still, for extended periods in the presence of the Lord—is worth the practice and effort it takes to develop it into habit.

For one, it answers the imperative of the Psalmist, to be still and know that He is God.  Coming to God in silence, with no prayer request on our lips, no prayer needs in our hearts, no agenda and no “advice” for how he ought to resolve this or that issue I’m facing, is profoundly humbling and also profoundly liberating.  Learning to be truly silent before God develops our awareness of his presence because it forces us to turn off all other distractions, including, especially, our own inner chatter.

For another, the practice of silence is an important part of learning to “take every thought captive” as a Christian.  Practicing silence teaches us better control over our thoughts.  In order to get better at sitting silently before God, we must also, and first, get better at taking charge of our thoughts: holding them still, keeping some from developing, keeping others from running away with us.  Silence is, in fact, a discipline of mental toughness; and mental toughness,  I am learning, is necessary if we are going to be in control of our own thought patterns, taking captive those thoughts that do not honour Jesus or are unbecoming a follower of his, and nurturing those thoughts that do and are.  Silence is to “taking thought captive” what weight training it to Olympic wrestling: they’re not the same thing, but then again the one is sure a lot easier if you’ve done a lot of the other.

Finally, silence is, I believe a necessary condition for genuine hearing.  Even in normal conversation we know this is true.  I can’t really hear my spouse if I’m trying to speak over her; and what’s more, if I’m busy thinking of what I’m going to say next when she’s talking, I’ll miss what she has to say, too.  The same is true with God, I think. So much of my prayers are really me chattering over God’s voice, never stopping to hear what he has to say.  Because silence puts us in the posture of waiting patiently to speak until spoken to, it develops in us a deeper sensitivity to the small still voice of God, and a more profound recognition of it, when he does speak.

If that’s made a firm enough case for the practice of silence that you’re feeling challenged to try incorporating this practice into your own Christian disciplines, let me offer a few practical things that have helped me.

1. Posture matters.  Where and how you sit when you are practicing silence will make a big difference to how you experience it.  Sit in the same location each time, and sit in a relaxed, upright position, one you will not be tempted to shift about in, but one you won’t fall asleep in (don’t laugh, it happens...)

2.  Learn to breathe.  This is one of the key aspects to the practice of silence.  Learn to breathe slowly and regularly from your belly, through your nose, filling your lungs from the diaphragm.  Practice this a fair bit, and use the regular rhythm of this “belly breathing” to continually centre you.  Whenever you become aware that your inner noise has started up again, come back to your breathing and let it quiet you down once more.

3.  Visualize your silence.  It helps to use an image of some sort or other to help you stay silent.  Sometimes I imagine I am sitting in a wide, open meadow, for instance, with a gentle breeze blowing.  Whenever I become aware that I’ve started up my inner noise again, I imagine my thoughts as though they were dandelion fluff, and I let the “breeze” blow them away until I’m silent again. (Another one is to imagine yourself sitting at the bottom of a still, clear pond, and whenever thoughts emerge in your mind, visualize them as bubbles, floating up to the surface).

4. Remove distractions.  Not just in the moment, but as part of your lifestyle.  Get rid of your TV, for instance or at least put it in a place (the basement, a back room) where it takes an intentional decision to watch it, and it’s not easy to while away mindless hours prone before it.  Do the same with the internet, Facebook, video games, or whatever else is screaming “pay attention to me!” into your life.

5.  The Holy Spirit is the Best Teacher.  Start each time of silence with a prayerful invitation to the Holy Spirit to guard you, guide you, direct you and protect you as you quiet yourself before the Lord; and end each time with the same.

6. Practice make perfect.  Don’t be surprised or discouraged if, the first time you sit down to silence, you find your thoughts are like the afore-mentioned teeny-bouncer, too.  Silence actually takes practice.  But set a timed goal—5 minutes, 15 minutes, 20 minutes, or what have you—and work at increasing the length of time you practice silence by small increments.

Again, silence is not as prominent a spiritual discipline as the more pragmatic ones, but it is, I am learning as I try more and more to work it into my own disciplines, a precursor for being more fully aware of God’s presence in the more pragmatic ones.  But don’t take my word for it; take the prophet Elijah’s.  In the famous passage about Elijah hearing the small still voice of God on the mountain side, we’re told that God wasn’t in the whirlwind, the earthquake or the roar of the fire.  But after all that came “the sound of crushed silence” (that’s how my Hebrew prof translated the verse, anyways), and when Elijah hear that—the sound of crushed silence—that’s when he heard the voice of the Lord speaking to him.

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