The Practise of Silence and Letting Go

 I am four days into my study leave delayed from September 2019 because of the Coronavirus pandemic. The gift of this time still doesn't feel real. Even up until the week prior to its beginning, I was expecting it to be snatched away from me. Yet here I am, a few days in and I am starting to let go and form new routines that I hope will sustain me until May.

On the first day, I cleared my study (to a degree as I'm not done as there are books I need to return to shelves!) I wanted to create a space I could dwell in.

When I was on study leave last, eleven years ago, we went away to New Zealand and Australia for about half of the time and I spent 2 weeks in Sweden too. This time, because we are required to stay at home because of the COVID-19 lockdown, I knew I needed to form a space I could be formed in.

I remember reading somewhere that a monk's cell might have its etymological root in the French word ciel for 'sky' or 'heaven'. It certainly derives from the Latin for room. The cell is the monastery in minature; the place where the monk or nun spends most of their time. It is a place to work, pray and rest in. It is a space where they are formed into Christlikeness and focussed heavenward.

As my study was to be a place of reading, writing and study over the next three months, I also wanted to create a space within my 'cell', a place of praxis, where I could pray and practise the silence I was to read and write about.

I set aside some sacred space by a chair. It needed to be distinct from my desk. Here are prayer and devotional tools including my rosary and singing bowl. Under the icon of the Last Supper lies my current prayer list - as Christ offers Himself to God for us in the Eucharist, so those who I am praying for are offered too.

Here I will pray a simple 4 fold Office, read and reflect on the Rule of St Benedict, and seek to practise the silence I am being called to and seek to be formed in.

~~~

A word about the focus of my study. I am so pleased that in recent years, the once-taboo subject of mental health, is now freely talked about and ways to remain mentally well are much more talked about and taught in the mainstream.

In part a response to personal experience and the COVID-19 pandemic, I am convinced that we are about to be faced with a mental health tidal wave. The UK governement made a commitment to ensure that there was Mental Health First Aid training offered to every secondary school. This I believe will be needed and access to others who are trained across the community will be paramount in the months and years ahead. I am undertaking MHFA training for both youth and adults in the first stages of my study leave with the view to be a local resource.

In a world that is audibly and visually very noisy, I believe we need silence as a reset. I was reading yesterday that, because of the over-stimulus of contemporary living, our bodies are constantly in flight or fight mode. The rush of adrenaline and associated physiological processes when in that 'mode' have an impact on our physical wellbeing such as appetite, but they also impact our emotional wellbeing. If we are constantly set in emotional high tension, like a taught elastic band, we become more prone to stretch or snap. Neither are emotionally healthy.

I have felt called into silence for some time. Some of that call is restoring my own emotional health. Silence though is not a retreat from the world and its stimuli. Silence is a strategy for living 1.

I have been increasingly finding that ministry is prone to similar overstimulation. The need to build resilience as a parish priest has been written about extensively 2. I am all too aware of the costs are of the costs of needing to turn on a sixpence from one aspect of parish ministry to another. As an introvert, the costs of leading worship, are also real. Whilst reading Susan Cain's quite frankly remarkable 'Quiet' 3 I realised why this would be the case for me, and that it was ok, and how to value myself and the gifts I bring.

The vocation to silence wasn't a reaction to ministry or wordy liturgy. It was a call to my soul that I increasingly couldn't ignore. As Ruth Haley Barton says, 'Entering silence is to accept an invitation... to intimacy with God.'

It may seem obtuse to be reading and writing about silence. I am hoping to do both as praxis - to give me tools for life. Silence is about self care and living. Silence is a spiritual discipline we have lost sight of, no, we can no longer hear.

In 1 Kings 19:1-19, Elijah flees the wrath of Queen Jezabel into the wilderness. There, an emotional wreck, he hopes to die in solitude. God had other plans and feeds him and calls him to meet Him. At the moth of a cave, God isn't found in the might, majesty and noise of a strong wind, an earthquake or of fire, but in the sound of sheer silence.

I hope in these weeks to explore silence as a tool for mental wellbeing in a noisy world but also as a spiritual discipline - to silence the noise of life, and to listen deeply to God.

~~~

Footnotes

1. See Amber Hatch's 'The Art of Silence' https://www.amazon.co.uk/Art-Silence-Amber-Hatch/dp/0349418128/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1612437638&sr=8-2

2. See Justine Allain Chapman's 'Resillient Pastors' https://www.amazon.co.uk/Resilient-Pastors-Adversity-Healing-Pastoral/dp/0281063834/ref=sr_1_2?crid=4BXUQU3C6PI2&dchild=1&keywords=justine+allain+chapman&qid=1612438387&sprefix=justine+al%2Caps%2C163&sr=8-2