The Burden of Speech

How often have you heard the phrase 'awkward silence'? The words alone send uncomfortable feelings through our minds and bodies, and we avoid that silence at all costs.  But, there is something worse, I think (for me, anyway); it is what I call the 'burden of speech'.  If the awkward silence is having nothing to say when we feel something should be said, the burden of speech is feeling the need to say something, when nothing needs saying at all.  So much of what passes for conversation or communication among us seems to be what a wiser age called 'idle chatter'.

This was recently all made palpably real for me as I spent the last four days or so on retreat in a convent of Benedictine sisters.  The blessed silence! The wonderful freedom of being able to pass someone in the hall or a corridor without having to enter into a discussion of inconsequentials, a simple smile being enough. Meal times were about eating, and when one was finished on could simply leave the table. There were no excuses to be made or sensibilities to assuage.  You could read a book in a sitting room full of other people, without being asked about its content or your reactions. Silence, not speech, was the paradigm and norm. Even in prayer the sisters relieved us of the burden of  speech by singing the prayers throughout the day as we allowed their chant to wash over us and to deepen us in our silence. 

Now, all of this may seem a kind of solipsistic indulgence, and yet I discovered that the silence made me more aware of others and their needs, not less.  When silence is the norm - at dinner, for example - you watch to see if the person next to you needs water or is looking for butter, and so you offer what they need without their having to ask.  Again, a smile or a nod serving as a 'thank you'.  In performing common tasks like washing up, you become aware of the other's space in a completely different way than usual. Being conscious of the need to avoid an unnecessary 'sorry', you move around the room with a heightened awareness of the other and where they are so as to not bump into them or get in their way.  Instead of telling the other where something is, you show them.  Instead of asking where something goes, you explore a little.  Of course, you can speak, but before you do the interior question is always 'Is it necessary?'

Now, I am willing to admit that this may all be a temperament thing, and that the freedom I discovered in laying down the 'burden of speech' would be to another a nightmare of 'awkward silences'.  However, I cannot help but reflect on our present culture's fear of silence and people's constant refuge into what can only be described as incessant, idle chatter.  In one the places I work, I witness it among young people as well as a fair amount of adults; and I am challenged by the questions: 'Does everything that comes into our heads, have to be expressed on our lips?'  'Is everything we seem almost compelled to say really worth listening to by another?'  'Are our words really about communication with the other, or actually about distancing the other as we assert our own fragile identity by creating sound waves?'

Personally, I felt relieved and blessed to be able to lay down the burden of speech, even if only for a time; but also to discover kindred spirits who like me felt nothing awkward about silences and who in silence were able to connect with each other in a rare and profound way. 

St Patrick's Day

Today is 17 March, but it is NOT St Patrick's Day! Today is Monday in Holy Week. No feast or saints' days which fall during Holy Week or during Easter week may be celebrated. Major feasts must be 'transferred' to a day beyond Easter week. If they are small commemorations of saints they are simply dropped that year. In most countries, liturgically St Patrick's Day is one of those small commemorations. However, in Ireland it is not only a major feast, but also a public (bank) holiday, so this caused some problems. The public holiday could not be moved and the Church had to transfer the feast of St Patrick to a day at least two weeks after its date of March 17th. The Church decided instead to move it forward to the 15th, moving it as close as possible to the civic holiday. England also has had a similar shift. This is the first year that in many schools the Easter holidays really are spring holidays and do not coincide with Holy Week and Easter Week. Of course, schools are off on Good Friday and Easter Monday (both are bank holidays), but the actual break is in the middle of April.

What we are witnessing is a divorce of a 'marriage' forged in the Middle Ages. What we are witnessing is the divorce of the civic calendar from the ecclesiastical one. For over one thousand years, the ecclesiastical calendar was the civic calendar, and civic events informed the church's year. They were inseparable; and now they are separating.  No doubt, vestiges of the union will remain always marking the civic calendar, not unlike the months of July and August hearkening back to long dead emperors the connection to which few people now remember; but for the most part the divide between them will widen. To all of this I say a resounding 'Hurrah!' It is only one more sign that we are beginning to live in a post-Christian age.  

Again, 'Hurrah', I say; not because a post-Christian age will mark the end of Christianity, but because it just may begin the dawn of a Christianity that brings with it no social boons or perks - not even 'calendrical' priority.  It may begin the dawn of a  Christianity which is not at the heart of power, control, or privilege; in fact, a Christianity so 'powerless' that for evangelism and mission it must resort to simply living the gospel. Ironically enough, it would be a Christianity far more familiar to St Patrick!

Your Weakness is Your Power

I have spent this weekend in Bruges in Belgium. Bruges (or more correctly, Brugge), a world heritage sight, is one the most perfectly preserved medieval towns, complete with a relic of the Holy Blood of Christ (www.holyblood.com). From the mid 14th to the early 17th centuries it was one of the wealthiest towns in Western Europe. Producing rich traders and merchants specialising all all minds of goods, it attracted the finest artists of the time: Memling, Van Eyck, Petrus Christus.  Their works still adorn the churches and museums of the city. However, an unsuccessful revolt sometime in the 16th century against their Hapsburg masters, guaranteed them their place as a considerable backwater. Loss of trade, favour and monopolies meant that time stood still.  However in the long run it was the city's greatest blessing, as it made for a place untouched by the subsequent centuries..  Few of the buildings are from a period after the 1650's.  Cobbled streets, stone vaulted porticoes, hidden little gardens and picturesque canals all beautifully survive. Its loss of power and prestige was the best fortune that could have happened for its future inhabitants and the rest of the world.

Reflecting on this, and  still thinking about my trip to Washington DC, I was reminded how this same dynamic was true of the American War of Independence.  During the war, the young country lamented that it did not have the trappings and structures of its adversary; for example, a distinct capital city or an established military hierarchy. However, both these 'deficiencies' proved to be some of their strongest assets in the winning the war.  The fact that their was no city specifically considered a 'capital' meant that should the British capture Philadelphia where the Continental Congress was meeting they could simply move somewhere else, without the loss of the morale that the capture of a capital city signifies in a war. The British did indeed capture Philadelphia at one point in the war, and the government simply moved to New York.  Equally the lack of an established military hierarchy meant the people rose in the ranks purely by merit, instead of class, money or nepotism.  Again, that which was considered drawbacks turned out to be blessings.

Perhaps, the corollary for us as individuals is all too obvious, but I will nevertheless make the point.  Sometimes, that which we may consider our greatest weakness may just be that which will will be our salvation, that which will open up for us opportunities which we could not have really imagined or compassed.  Personally, at present, I am finding that difficult to believe, but still I keep trusting in it.  I keep trusting in it because I have for a long time been converted to the cosmic economy of paradox. The economy of paradox is the profound reality that truth is most profoundly discovered in paradox: do you want to really live, then learn to die;  do you want to receive, then learn to give.  The fact that our perceived weaknesses may eventually turn out to be our glory, is only part of that cosmic economy.  From where I stand now, I simply hope it does not take as long to manifest itself as it did for Bruges, or with the struggle and loss of life that it did for the American republic.