Anglican priest and hermit Fr Ian Crooks
By Ian Crooks
“We have got to the point where a soundless world has practically ceased to exist, and we are the poorer for it,” writes Cistercian monk and author Michael Casey in Balaam’s Donkey. “Recently I have read several accounts written by brave adventurers who have put aside their electronic devices for an hour, a day, or even a week and been astonished to discover the richness of a life without incessant interruptions and noise.”
Silence, he continues, is essential to Christian discipleship. “Especially today, with the seemingly universal triumph of the banal and trivial. So many words, so few meanings!
“We need to hear the words Christ addresses to us: ‘Come away and rest a while.’ [He is inviting you to] make friends with your own inner reality. Free yourself from the tyranny of the obvious, and grow in sensitivity to the unseen world of the Spirit.”
Fr Casey outlines three benefits of silence:
“Firstly, it makes us more aware of our inward enslavements and addictions, and motivates us to free ourselves from their grasp.
“Secondly, by giving us an opportunity to consider, it helps us to choose the most life-giving path.
“Thirdly, it stirs up in us the energy to go beyond our comfort zone and venture into new territories. All of us need to recognise the value of silence and to take steps to provide ourselves with more opportunities to be quiet and still. Silence is a source of empowerment; without it we are lost.”
Constant activity and noise has been normalised in Western culture, and it is now counter-cultural to seek or request silence. It’s almost impossible to find a cafe that doesn’t have music blaring in all four corners. A request to turn it down is generally met with bewilderment. But such noise is minor compared to the experience of shopping plazas and supermarkets.
Bombarded by audible and visual stimuli, we are increasingly in danger of a disconnection with who we really are.
Silence allows us the space to re-kindle our capacity to observe, to be aware of the sights and sounds around us, more attuned to the nuances in the verbal and non-verbal signals that other people communicate to us. There develops an unspoken and deeper interaction and intimacy. And we hear more clearly, notice more often the singing of birds, the buzz of the bees, the wind in the trees, and an audible depth when all is still.
We are deluded when we think that the greater the communication, the constant exchange of messages and images, means the closer is the relationship. In his Asian Journal, Trappist monk Thomas Merton says that:
“The deepest level of communication is not communication, but communion. It is wordless. It is beyond words, and it is beyond speech, and it is beyond concept. Not that we discover a new unity. We discover an older unity. My dear Brothers, we are already one. But we imagine that we are not. And what we have to recover is our original unity.”
When the Chinese government annexed Tibet, it installed loud speakers everywhere and continuously broadcast music and propaganda. The Tibetans lamented that their silence had been stolen. It’s not so different in our Western world.
Ian is a retired Anglican priest living in Australia. He is an Oblate of the Benedictine Abbey at Jamberoo in NSW, and took his vows as a hermit 10 years ago. He has led Retreats and Quiet Days for over 30 years and for 10 years was a Retreat and Seminar leader for the Wellspring Centre in Melbourne. This article is based on a talk he gave at the Lenten Retreat of the Victorian branch of the World Community for Christian Meditation – Australia, in March 2021.