I’ve just had a new article published on the website of Atlanta’s Interfaith Community Institute. It’s called “Silence: Doorway to Contemplation and Interfaith Friendship.”
In Psalm 46, God is quoted as saying, “Be still and know that I am God.” God, the Ultimate Mystery, is greater than human language, thought, or ideas. For this reason, language always seems to conceal God as much as it reveals God.
While not, therefore, replacing the heritage of theological and mystical language that testifies to God, silence opens a doorway to encountering the presence of God (the Ultimate Mystery) at a level beyond anything that could ever be expressed in words.
In this article I tell the story of my own relationship with silence, and how the practice of intentional silence has helped me not only to grow spiritually but also to embrace the promise of positive interfaith relationships. I may not understand all there is to know about my friends from other faiths, and certainly our friendships are vulnerable to the fact that our beliefs are often quite different from each other — but in silence we can find a way to be present to one another, to pray together, and to enjoy each other.
Update, December 2019: It’s come to my attention that the ICI newsletter from 2011 is no longer available online. So I harvested this article from the Internet archives, tweaked it slightly to reflect my own growth over the least eight years, and I published it on Medium. But in case you don’t have Medium access, here’s the full article:
How Silence is a Doorway to Contemplation and Interfaith Friendship
When I was a boy, my family did not regard silence in a positive way. Indeed, we saw silence as a problem to be overcome. “She’s giving him the silent treatment,” was a phrase you might hear used to describe a relationship where conflict or anger had shut down communication. “They’re not speaking to one another.”
Such silence pointed to disease or death — a diseased relationship, or even a death of intimacy. One hoped that the problems that caused the silence would somehow get worked out. Unfortunately, tensions couldn’t be resolved unless someone broke the silence.
At its worst, the silent treatment could lead to a permanent death — as in a nasty divorce where only the lawyers are talking. Thankfully, this kind of oppressive silence is not the only form of silence available to us.
As I entered into adolescence and early adulthood, I discovered that I enjoyed silence as I found it in a variety of settings. I learned to relish the quiet time I would spend in nature, enjoying the speechless company of trees or the soft murmur of the never-ending surf.
Likewise, libraries and churches appealed to me because they were places where I could sit to enjoy only the company of my thoughts. Eventually I learned to let even the chatter of my mind slow down to almost a standstill. For me, these places became areas of refuge, havens away from the buzz, clamor and din of everyday life.
There are yet deeper ways to experience silence. When I first began to visit monasteries as a young adult just out of college, I discovered an entire social ecosystem built around silence. Monks prayed together, worked together, and simply lived their lives together, with a commitment to holding in common a shared silence for much of their days.
Monastic silence is the silence of presence — a freely chosen, respected and respectful way to foster relationship and community by restraining from unnecessary speech.
In my experience this kind of shared silence is deeply liberating and quietly joyful. I think the best way to describe this kind of silence is the stillness of contemplation, for it is grounded in a serene, watchful mindfulness.
Here was the healthy alternative to the silence of “the silent treatment.” That muffling of speech arose from emotional turmoil. By contrast, the silence of contemplation is grounded in serenity from which a reverent unwillingness to disturb the peace leads to a natural reticence to speak.
This is a way of being silent best expressed in a Quaker proverb: “Speak only when your words are an improvement upon silence.” Finally — here I must use the language of my faith tradition — silence is a way of encountering God.
In Psalm 46, God is quoted as saying, “Be still and know that I am God.” God, the Ultimate Mystery, is greater than human language, thought, or ideas. For this reason, language always seems to conceal God as much as it reveals God.
While not, therefore, replacing the heritage of theological and mystical language that testifies to God, silence opens a doorway to encountering the presence of God (the Ultimate Mystery) at a level beyond anything that could ever be expressed in words.
The two central commandments of the Christian tradition are to love God and to love one’s neighbors. I discovered in the silence of contemplation a lovely and peaceful way to foster love for other people.
Even though I am not a monk, I have discovered in my marriage tremendous joy in spending shared silence with my wife. This is not the silence of conflict or anger. It is instead the serene silence of shared prayer, mindful attention to our chores, or even the quiet pleasure of shared company as we each pursue our own interests and hobbies.
My wife and I enjoy being together, in silence as well as in times when we converse. Likewise, I find silence as a spiritual practice has been a powerful tool to help me to deepen my love for God and my desire to live a godly life.
Whether the silence is time spent in meditation, or quiet prayer, or simply resting in my faith in the presence of God, it is enriching and fulfilling.
I first became interested in the possibility of interfaith friendships and spirituality back in the 1980s when I discovered the Shalem Institute in Washington, DC (where I was living at the time). Shalem helped people to deepen their spiritual lives by introducing its participants to both Christian and Buddhist spiritual practices.
Needless to say, silence was an important part of the Shalem experience. My interest soon led me to discover a variety of Christian figures who were engaged in interfaith work: Thomas Merton, Bede Griffiths, Mary Margaret Funk, Cynthia Bourgeault, William Johnston, Raimon Panikkar, among others.
Again and again, I discovered that these inspiring pioneers in the work of friendly, positive interaction among religions were people whose lives were committed to the cultivation of silence.
In their lives as monks, nuns, priests, and other contemplatives, they found respect for the integrity and cultural uniqueness of each faith. The reasons for this are, it seems to me, fairly easy to recognize.
Monastics and contemplatives, are people dedicated to learning how to live together in peace and silence. They can take the skills necessary to live with others who share their faith and apply those abilities to forming friendships even with those whose religion is different.
Silence, after all, leads not to argument or debate, but rather fosters a shared experience of irenic, peace-promoting calm. In silence, the focus is on breathing together, being mindful together, and relaxing the incessant chatter of the mind.
In other words, silence creates a space where an alternative to conflict and one-up-man-ship might take root. But silence is not just conducive to fostering positive community between human beings.
Each person is also invited into the silence to deepen his or her relationship with the Ultimate Mystery. Many people of faith are likely to describe the presence of this Ultimate Mystery as God. Others might prefer a different word than “God,” but nevertheless share a respect for silence as the language of the spirit, common to all humankind.
In silence we lay down our words and concepts that — while meaningful to us and our “tribe” — run the risk of fomenting alienation or conflict with others whose background is different from our own.
Although there is a place for respectful dialog between people of different religions, a commitment to shared silence can ensure that such dialog begins not from a place of defensiveness or self-protection, but rather from a more hopeful place of acknowledging and respecting the common humanity that unites, rather than divides, us all.
It has been well over 30 years now since I first discovered the shared silence of contemplation and the invitation to be still before God. Beyond places like Shalem or monasteries that are dedicated to silence, I believe everyone can benefit from cultivating at least some silence in his or her life.
For me, silence is the doorway to greater intimacy with God and with those who share my commitment to a contemplative form of Christianity. It is also the doorway to forming meaningful friendships with those whose faith is different from my own.
In silence, we can simply be present to one another, sharing a gentle and undefended time together. Silence may not make all our conflicts go away. Nor is it an adequate response to systemic problems such as racism or sexism or homophobia — those problems thrive on “the silent treatment,” rather than true contemplative silence, which seeks reconciliation and therefore is a silence that wants to dismantle systems of oppression.
When embraced in a peaceful way and with a commitment to contemplation and compassion, silence can help us see each other as friends, rather than adversaries. It can spur us to relationship and reconciliation. For this reason alone, I am convinced that silence is a precious gift we all can share.
Carl McColman is a lay associate of the Monastery of the Holy Spirit in Conyers, GA. He is the author of several books including The Big Book of Christian Mysticism.
