Reflection - Silence

http://www.usccb.org/bible/readings/090116.cfm

1 Corinthians 3:18-23
Luke 5:1-11

If we've ever had the opportunity to spend some time by quiet waters, the  setting which Luke sketches for us in this morning's gospel is one with which we can easily relate. The Lake of Gennesaret, also known as the Sea of Galilee, is a dominant geographical feature of northern Palestine. The first-century historian Flavius Josephus was so impressed by the area that he wrote, "One may call this place the ambition of Nature." I'm sure that many who have discovered a pleasant outdoor setting can comfortably situate themselves into the scene Luke describes. 

Jesus is offering those who have gathered the word of God. In their eagerness to hear, they press forward upon him, but he has his back to the lake water. To his side sit some fishermen, cleaning their nets after a disappointing night of fishing; their boats are close by, still in the water. Jesus steps into one of the boats and asks Simon to push out a bit into the lake. There, Jesus sits down and continues with his instruction. The lake is a pool of silence; Jesus voice easily carries over the waters.

Simon must have been listening as he worked on the nets. He was sufficiently intrigued to fulfill the request of this itinerant preacher and leave his buddies to finish the work required. So, while Jesus spoke from this throne upon the water, Simon listened.

Let me depart from the scene for just a moment to consider a crucial element that will subsequently be presented in the text.

Silence is a highly variable term. Although it conveys a negative --- the absence of something ---  its meaning in a given situation is seldom, if ever, taken as an absolute. Silence is usually understood to be relative. 

There is the silence that is not chaos.

     The children left and suddenly there was silence. 

There is the silence that comes with the cessation of unwanted sounds.

     The day ended. The hum from the highway subsided and there was silence.

There is the simple silence of no noise.

     In the dawning hours of morning, the earth revolved in silence.

There is the silence which is the absence of speaking.

     He maintained his silence in the face of the Pharisees' accusations.

But when we sing: "I will come to you in the silence." None of these examples seem appropriate. Although each instance cited before involves a diminishment of noise, the silence wherein the Lord comes is a different kind of silence altogether. It has nothing to do with exterior sounds, the reverberations in the air or the clanging of the ear's hammer on the anvil. Indeed, our Lord can still come to us in spite of the cacophony of creation even as we are part of that cacophony and that creation.

The Psalmist tells me: "Be still before the LORD, and wait patiently for him."  (Psalm 37:7) But what does that mean? I lose silence in the moment I speak of it. How do I, how can I pursue the silence that the Psalmist commands? For myself, I find three things are essential --- there may be more --- these are my three. 

The first is a silencing of self. This is the silence that comes when I stop seeing and hearing and tasting and touching and feeling all things in reference to me. This is not to say that I must stop doing these and become numb to the world. Rather, it is to say that the 'self' experience stands in the way of experiencing the 'other.' That is true whether the other is man of God. So I must rise above focusing all things on my 'self.' This is not a new concept. We refer to this casually when we talk about 'walking in another person's shoes.' In a sense, we must apply the same principle to our relationship with God. Inevitably, it will result in an acknowledgement of our true  position before Him.

But if I am to be still before the Lord, something even more is required. There is need of silence in both my mind and heart. Ideas, thoughts, ideals and illusions float through the limitless spaces of my mind. Often it seems that a silence of the mind is a fiction. It reminds me of the old alchemist's instructions for turning lead into gold: simply hold the lead in your hand for five minutes without thinking of the word gold. My heart, on the other hand, is burdened with anger, hatred, revenge, as well as anxieties and pain. The love which I carry in my heart, no matter how immense or intense it is, is pierced by those troubles and sorrows with which I surround it. Both my mind and my heart must move into silence, not by encasing these experiences in tombs of stone, but by surrendering them all to the One who already knows them. Only in giving them away can My mind and heart be in silence.

And finally my silence must not be a dead silence, a silence created by the suppression of interior action. Rather, it must be a living silence, one which welcomes with enthusiasm whatever words the Lord will speak. He will come to me in my silence. This is the teaching we hear in the Psalms. "For God alone my soul waits in silence; from him comes my salvation." (Psalm 62:1) and "For God alone my soul waits in silence, for my hope is from him." (Psalm 62:5) This is the silence that comes when the moment of experience tells us that words are not useful.

It is the silence of standing naked in the presence of unending love. "Be still, and know that I am God. I am exalted among the nations, I am exalted in the earth!" (Psalm 46:10) It is in that silence that He will come. 

So, now I return to Jesus, sitting in the boat. Simon sitting beside him or behind him, awash in the presence of the Lord, absolute in his silence. When Jesus finished speaking, he said to Simon: “Put out into deep water and lower your nets for a catch.”

We know that Simon must have been in total silence during the teaching of Jesus. We know that Simon, who later describes himself as a "simple man," had silenced his 'self' and surrendered both mind and heart so as to wait in silence for his salvation. Nothing else can explain the fact that Simon, the experienced fisherman, said in reply to the itinerant carpenter/preacher: “Master, we have worked hard all night and have caught nothing, but at your command I will lower the nets.”

He was still overcome by the power of Jesus' words and he still struggled to grasp the man's overwhelming presence. He had yet to understand the words: "To the Lord belong the earth and all that fills it." Including all that fills your nets. 

It may not seem that it should be so, but in this passage I understand the Lord to be talking about silence --- my silence before him, in his presence. And I hear him affirming the words of his Son. Just as Simon was given what he needed after he had listened in silence, so too, the Lord says to me: I will give you what you need if you will but listen.