Like Nike - Just do it!

I have been grumbled at.

Someone complained that I shouldn't be posting this blog on social media because I am 'on retreat' and therefore I shouldn't be posting anywhere. I am exploring silence, therefore I should be silent and certainly not 'bragging' about the time I have on Facebook.

This grumble bothered me for a while. I want to write about my experiences and discoveries so that I have a log of this pilgrimage; but I also wanted to blog so that it might be an encouragement to others to experiment with silence as a spiritual discipline.

My 12 weeks away from parish ministry are not a retreat. That's language I have never used and my diocese doesn't use it. In fact, the diocese much prefers to use the language of study rather than sabbath. Yes, of course, there is intentionally time for spiritual renewal and for rest in this time, but for my own part, this time is both a pilgrimage of self-discovery as I experiment with silence as a spiritual discipline and an academic exercise exploring others' experiences too.

The grumble made me reflect further - if I only read about solitude and silence and don't seek to try it, I am missing the point. If my silence was only going to be experimented with in a couple of specialist circumstances, wasn't I missing the gift horse looking at me? Surely experimenting with silence and exploring it's benefits both spiritually and emotionally, need to be something that I and others can benefit from at home, at school, at work indeed wherever we are.

I needed to be like Nike - to just do it.

I decided that as I said the office this morning, I would hold a good period of silence after the opening prayer. I hoped for ten minutes but would be content with five.

The opening prayer in the liturgy I am using at the moment usually encourages me to thank God for the night passed and to offer the day to Him with all its joys and sorrows. It is a prayer of self-offering. It invites me to risk what I wrote about yesterday - acknowledging that my desire for God through silence, outweighs my anxieties of being stripped from my control and self interest.

My plan was to say the opening prayer more slowly than I have been (I found myself two-thirds of the way through the liturgy the other day without really knowing what I'd said), and then to sit with my eyes closed and my hands open on my lap in a posture of openness and receipt.

My intention was then to practise a listening exercise; to listen for the closest sound I could hear and to move further away by degree. The idea is to listen with care and attention. So I began, hands outstretched, eyes closed.

As I listened I could hear the house cooling as the heating had gone off; I could hear the birds outside in the garden flitting around searching for food or items for nest building; as I listened to could hear a car on a nearby road - the sound of tyres on tarmac. By this point, I was distracted by my own racing thoughts. I batted them away but they reappeared with greater urgency; people, places, activities, doubts, just waffle. This happened several times. I could feel my heart rate rise. This was not what I was hoping for, even though others recount this being normal as silence is embraced.

Then I was then aware of my own internal noise and I could hear my breathing - something that most of the time one is not too aware of. I then listened more attentively and could hear the sound of a sort of ringing whistling in my ears. I know I have some hearing loss - I've listened to enough loud music and been to plenty of gigs to know that there will have been a cost.

This was different though. It was almost as if I was being brought to attention.

Then I was aware of sheer silence, thick and downy. All the sounds I described were gone. It was almost as if I spoke, the sound of my voice would be sucked away. I could hear nothing but was very aware of something. My senses were alert but relaxed. I was deeply at peace.

I noted that my breathing was slowed as had my heart rate.

Then I felt gentle heat on the top of my head. It was like feeling the hands of the Bishop pressed on my head at my Confirmation or Ordination. The warmth though, passed down from my head onto and into my upper torso, filling me with that same comforting warmth, and I 'heard' the words - 'Finally. Welcome.'

I remained in this posture of openness and the warmth began to retreat - from my upper torso, out of my body, up onto the crown of my head and gone.

I sat in silence for a few moments longer, bewildered and moved, and then opened my eyes and continued with the liturgy of the office. I had been sat in that posture of openness and receipt for about 15 minutes.

The silence and experience were profound.

I am sure there are physiological reasons that can explain the experience, and that wouldn't lessen the profundity of it for me at all.

I am sure though that in those moments of deep silence I encountered God, and that encounter was like only to ones I've had on only a few other occasions. In places of beauty and holiness. Today I encountered the one for whom I desire and who desires me - God - in silence in my study.

Recalling this here isn't intended as a boast. I'm simply recalling the experience. You can make of it what you will. My day and I hope, the days ahead, are changed because of it.