Retreat experience
taught how silence is golden

Speaking of Religion
The Rev. Dr. Tim Griffin

I attended a silent retreat last week. I was not alone. There were about 25 others on retreat, none of whom I had met before.
We only spoke in order to chant or if it was necessary to facilitate the daily chores we shared — housecleaning, meal preparation and cleanup after meals. Otherwise we were silent, at least externally, and spent about five hours a day sitting in silent meditation/prayer.
I assume that, like me, the other participants had the usual dialogue running in their minds. My storyteller was in his usual form. But interestingly, by keeping my mouth shut, and without external stimulation from the speech of others, I was able to see through many of these old familiar tales.
The usual allure of the internal dialogue was on the whole less persuasive. In fact, I began to see that many of the features of the drama that I often confuse with my life are fictions and not very convincing fictions at that.
Consequently, the script I mistake for reality, and often a tragic reality — "Poor me!" — began to take the form of a comedy — a farce with no basis in reality. It would have been entertaining were it not so difficult to see how deluded I can be.
At the conclusion of the six days, we had a time of sharing and a communal meal during which we could talk with one another. This led to another epiphany. I found that I cared for these people deeply without really knowing anything about them.
As we began to speak with one another, I was impressed that the dialogue added little to my feelings for them. On the contrary, I felt that I knew them more intimately during our silence together. Some kind of bond had been formed in spite of the silence — or perhaps because of the silence.
The silence had imparted a deeper sense of our shared humanity. The dialogue, on the other hand, did what language frequently does: it created distinctions and differences that were not apparent before. That is not to say that I ceased to care for my comrades, but our differences began to rise to the surface and to highlight our individuality rather than our commonality.
And then, another epiphany — our individuality was not threatening. Rather, our individuality and uniqueness was part of our common human nature. Diversity and unity complemented one another as two aspects of the one reality.
It is apparent, I guess, that this was an eye-opening retreat for me. Since returning to my "regular" life, I have tried to retain the lessons that I learned on retreat, particularly the lesson about my storyteller and his diabolical traps.
In addition, this experience has restored my appreciation of the transformative power of silence. Silence is transformative because entering it affords us the space to discern what is real, and it enables us to see more clearly what is of importance in our life. At least that has been my experience.
In the Christian tradition, the clarity that comes with silence has often been associated with communing with God. It is the hallmark, I think, of a busy people in an industrial (or post-industrial) society, that we have no time for prayer of this sort. Consequently, we often pray the way we live, i.e., on the run, if we pray at all.
And so our time with God is not time spent in silence. It is spent verbalizing petitions — asking for this or that. I think this means that we do not really want to know God, which takes time and quiet listening. Instead we want the things that God can provide for us.
We want someone to make our lives different. But our lives cannot be different unless we are different, unless we are transformed.
Can God transform our lives? Absolutely, but we must be willing partners in this process. This is where silence can be such a help. As we spend time with God in silence, we begin to know ourselves in a different way. We begin to cut through the stories we tell about ourselves and the stories we tell about God and we attain intimacy — with God, with ourselves and with the others in our lives. Then we can become different, and our lives will be transformed.
Why not try it for yourself, a few minutes a day, and see if it isn’t so? ••
Father Tim Griffin is priest-in-charge at the St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, at 1946 Welsh Road in Bustleton.