The Wisdom of Silence by Chris White

I got off my plane at the Medford Airport.  I was thoroughly energized by the last six weeks having spent them at the Moody Bible Institute in Chicago, but it was good to be back home with the family.  It was also good to be away from the sweltering humidity of a Mid-western summer; something that must be experienced to fully understand the graciousness of our local climate.  But what surprised me the most when I got back home was the quiet.  I had grown so accustomed to the 24/7 background hum of Chicago that I no longer heard it anymore.  By comparison, the Rogue Valley was silent and that silence made everything I heard more brilliant by comparison.

The Greeks had a god of silence named Harpocrates.  They "borrowed" him from Egypt after Alexander the Great conquered them.  Harpocrates is the child Horus (an Egyptian god) who has a finger to his lips.   In Egyptian art fingers to the lips symbolize a child, but the Greeks did not understand this and took the gesture to mean "shhhh" or to be silent and thus Harpocrates began his new reign over quietude.  Harpocrates has been well-known since late antiquity and was frequently employed in art as a symbol of the ideals of quiet contemplation and silent prayer.  I recently visited a renaissance era Benedictine monastery and there in the library was a large painting of Harpocrates with his finger to his lips and a Latin phrase that said something to the effect that "wisdom is found in great silence."  It might have actually said "no talking or gum chewing in the library" as I am a bit of a novice in translating Latin to English.  Regardless, there is a wisdom to having zones of silence in this world as the continual babbling and small talk of people rarely puts us in a position to receive that wisdom of God that can only be found by listening.

Hugh Feiss O.S.B. in his book Essential Monastic Wisdom speaks of the Benedictine value of silence.  It is not silence for its own sake, but a purposeful discipline of the mind and tongue that is geared at helping a man or woman grow to be an attentive listener to God, his superiors, and fellow man.  In becoming more apt to listen, there follows other good fruits such as speaking truthfully to one's neighbor and being cautious and more measured as to give no occasion for offense or even gossip and false witness.  When words are fewer, they have greater value.  When someone speaks, they are taken seriously.  I have a valued colleague whom I regularly consult for his insights into business and personnel matters.  When he doesn't weigh in on something I'm talking about, I take that very seriously and will often say to him that his "silence is really quite deafening!"  His words always have value because they are not used commonly or carelessly.

The Bible speaks much about listening and cautiously measuring the use of our words.  One of my favorite verses says "When words are many, transgression is not lacking, but whoever restrains his lips is prudent (Prov. 10:19)."  Elsewhere we read "Whoever restrains his words has knowledge, and he who has a cool spirit is a man of understanding (Prov. 17:27)."  The Godward reason we should measure our words is the Lord says we will have to give an accounting before him for the careless words we have uttered (a sobering reality for a person like me).  Towards our fellow man we need to discipline our words because there is no such thing as unsaying something.  Courtroom lawyers know this quite well and will go ahead and say things and object to things all the while knowing that a judge can tell a jury to disregard something, but the fact remains the thought has already set sail in everyone's mind.  I know from experience and the sacred confessions of people under my spiritual care, that some of the deepest wounds of the soul come from words spoken carelessly and heartlessly by parents and peers.  Even if those words have been apologized for profusely, they still  have a way of registering permanently.  If we take this to heart and think before we speak we might find many things best left unsaid.

Mother Teresa, a person I have come to profoundly respect, said “In the silence of the heart God speaks. If you face God in prayer and silence, God will speak to you. Then you will know that you are nothing. It is only when you realize your nothingness, your emptiness, that God can fill you with Himself. Souls of prayer are souls of great silence.”   The biggest part of really finding the Lord's presence is humility and one of its greatest demonstrations is realizing what we have to say isn't anywhere near as important as what He has to say.  Do we really think God doesn't know our needs, fears, frustrations and longings?  Faith tells us to pray (which is ostensibly talking to God) but faith also tells us to humble ourselves before the Lord.  Surely the wisdom of silence gives place for both.

Monk Habits for Everyday People: Benedictine Spirituality for Protestants by Dennis Okholm

One of the bright spots in present-day evangelicalism is that the long impoverishment of it’s tradition of spiritual formation seems to be coming to an end. Witness the proliferation of books in the last two decades on the spiritual disciplines. When Richard Foster came out with Celebration of Discipline in the early eighties it was a bit of a radical book. Today, it is a classic of discipleship quoted by everyone else. Dennis Okholm has made an excellent offering in this field with his book which successfully makes the broadest principles of Benedictine spirituality accessible to Protestant laypersons. He makes a good point that St. Benedict actually preceded the existence of the Roman Catholic Church as we know it today and thus the tradition is actually more universally Christian belonging to neither Catholics or Protestants alone. That aside, Okholm invites the reader to consider the practices of listening, poverty, obedience, humility, hospitality, stability, and balance which are practiced to this day by those with a religious vocation. As an example, Okholm points out that the vow of poverty does not mean a monk has no resources. He actually has all he needs to do live his life and do his work. He or she just owns it communally instead of individually. A protestant can practice the same by generously sharing his possessions with others and creatively networking to pool things that are only used occasionally. Hospitality for Benedictines meant taking in and ministering to the needs of a stranger as if he were Christ in disguise. Protestants may not have a retreat house like a monastery does, but they might have a spare bedroom. Just treating the many strangers that cross our path in a given day as if they were Jesus Himself would be a form practicing Benedictine hospitality. The book does a good job explaining how all of these practices are directly connected with scripture and how they enable us to be more available to Christ that we might become more fully transformed. I would recommend this book to be read first and then follow it up with Henri Nouwen’s The Way of the Heart and Dallas Willard’s The Spirit of the Disciplines.

On Saibarites and Gyrovagues Pt.1

“Saibarites” and “Gyrovagues” are words used by St. Benedict of Nursia to describe two kinds of Christians that are still alive and with us 1400 years after he wrote his famous Rule. A Saibarite, according to Benedict, is someone who determines right and wrong, spiritual or unspiritual according to their own personal taste. If they happen to like something or agree with it, it must be true and spiritual and worthy of pursuit. If they find something disagreeable or offensive to their sensibilities, then it must be wrong or unspiritual and be dismissed immediately. This is not to say that sometimes the very reason we dislike something is because it really is wrong and unspiritual. Many years ago I had a friend in Bible college that made racial slurs about black people. I find bigotry in bad taste but also quite sinful according to the teachings of Christ. But there are some people who tend to think that anything in conflict with their personal point of view is wrong and dismiss it quite uncritically. What is wrong with this line of thinking is that as Christians our truth comes from outside of ourselves. Man is a fallen creature in need of rescue not only from the flames of hell but also his own stupidity. Our minds and capacity to discern truth apart from the assistance God’s Holy Spirit, the Bible, and the community of the faithful is almost nil. We alone with unaided human reason as our guide consistently make the wrong choice (consider your investment history or how many unhappy married people there are). King Solomon wisely noted that there is wisdom in a multitude of counselors (Prov. 15:22) precisely because we need perspective outside of ourselves in order to discern the truth. Sometimes there’s an even darker motivation behind a Saibarite: pure, unmitigated, intellectual laziness. It is astounding how many of us suffer from an insatiable lack of curiosity about why things are the way they are. It’s like the bumper sticker I saw on a car recently that read “God said it, I believe it, that settles it!”. Although I can appreciate the well meaning sentiment about loyalty to God’s Word, I have a nagging suspicion the reality is more like “don’t bother me with any hard questions, because I don’t want my faith or assumptions about life disturbed!” The prescription for the Saibarite is really quite simple: take time when you hear a point of view that you don’t readily agree with and explore the reasons others might hold it. You may come to the same conclusion anyway, but at least you will have an understanding and perhaps even a greater toleration of people different from yourself. In some cases you might even have your mind changed completely which I would contend is truly one of life’s little miracles.

Man of Blessing: A Life of St. Benedict by Carmen Acevedo Butcher

Probably no man save Jesus Christ and the Apostle Paul has done more to shape both Western Civilization and Western Spirituality than Benedict of Nursia. Benedict is the fountain head of the Benedictine order and developed his Rule which guided every aspect of monastic life at his monastery (Monte Cassino) but also became the blueprint for living which was adopted by many other religious orders at least in part. The genius, the very contribution of Benedict was a humane and ordered existence which sought to fuse worship, prayer, and the ordinary tasks of daily living into a whole where one was living every day to the glory of God and there was no separation of the sacred and secular spheres of life. Washing dishes, hoeing manure into the vegetable patch was as holy a task as was chanting the Psalms in Latin at the appointed times of worship. Even the western orientation of time/event can be traced back to the canonical hours which was a type of holy dayrunner where monks slept, ate, worshipped, read the scriptures, did their chores, and celebrated communion on a set daily and hourly schedule. That said, author Carmen Butcher has also made a wonderful contribution to this world with Man of Blessing. Unfortunately, the earliest biographies we have on Benedict are hagiographies or books about saints. They are wonderful devotional reading but frequently are a bit overdrawn for modern readers because of their emphasis on the saint’s other-worldliness and performance of miracles. They also tend to be quite formulaic as well which makes the reader wonder if the facts aren’t bent a wee bit to make the saint conform to a particular standard of sainthood. Butcher’s work sources many of the ancient and medieval sources for Benedict’s life and weaves other aspects of what we know from the period into the story. The result is a warmer, and frankly more believeable Life of Benedict that does emphasize spiritual example all along. This was a delightful book to page through and a potent reminder that what makes a true saint of God is not so much the miraculous, but the ordinary human life lived well.