by J. Brent Bill

Adapted from Holy Silence: The Gift
of Quaker Spirituality, Paraclete Press.

“True silence is the rest of the mind; and is to the spirit, what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment.” That's what William Penn said centuries ago. At times I think Penn wrote the above quotation after seeing Friends snoring softly in meeting. If so, he's not the only one. Benjamin Franklin (who many people think was a Quaker because he dressed funny) writes about this happening on his first visit to Philadelphia.

…[I] walked again up the street, which by this time had many clean-dressed people in it, who were all walking the same way. I joined them, and thereby was led into the great meeting-house of the Quakers near the market. I sat down among them and, after looking round awhile and hearing nothing said, being very drowsy thro' labor and want of rest the preceding night, I fell fast asleep, and continued so till the meeting broke up, when one was kind enough to rouse me. This was, therefore, the first house I was in, or slept in, in Philadelphia.

In spite of that occurrence, which was not unique to Franklin, Penn probably had Jesus' statement in mind: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” Who among us—mother, father, co-worker, boss—is not weary and burdened? Whose soul doesn't need nourishment and refreshment? Words and phrases like burnout, chronic fatigue syndrome, and stressed out fill our conversations. Silence invites us to rest in God's loving care—a loving care so restful that some fall asleep.

I appreciate silence…

I value it. Silence restores my soul. But even a silence junkie like me needs to remember that spiritual silence takes effort and intentionality. Sometimes it is easier to work on rear speaker placement than it is to climb off the ladder in the dark silent basement and listen for God's voice. I look around our new house and, even with our emphasis on silence, I see a competing emphasis on having sound—the right number of telephones, cable outlets, and speakers in strategic rooms. I put extra insulation in our bedroom ceiling and walls, but that had more to do with not being able to hear our grandkids than it did with a spiritual purpose.

The way of silence isn't easy. In fact, it's a lot like an infant learning to talk. Just as children learn to speak, we adults need to learn the language of silence. We need to learn to listen, to be quiet. After years of hearing people urging us to “Speak up,” keeping our mouths shut and souls open can be like trying to shut off a faucet when the handle has broken off.

Silence though, when practiced amidst life's busyness, leads us through the whitewater of life to gentle pools of stillness and calm. Four hundred years of Quaker silence have pointed us back to the center within. Silence moves us into difficult self-examination…and then to healing…and then to relaxing in God's presence. Interior silence takes us to a place where we are living the apostle Paul's injunction to pray without ceasing, even when we are not consciously aware we are doing so.

That happened to me on a recent Good Friday when I spent the day hammering nails out of pieces of wood from the pallets that brought us the outside walls of our new house. You see, our home is made of timbers recycled from old factories and exterior walls constructed on jigs on the factory floor. These were then put on pallets and shipped on semis from New Hampshire to our Indiana homesite. “The wood we use in the pallets is better than most builders use in their homes,” said one of the people building our house. “You'll want to salvage as much of it as you can. Don't let the framers burn it up.” (Quakers are strong on grace and redemption. If something can be saved and used again, it is.) So, I hoped to see these used 2x4s born again as a woodshed or workshop.

Therefore, as the sun blazed, I pounded nails out instead of in. A few yards away, four framers worked at pounding nails in, hanging the walls and roof panels. While I drove 16 commons out of 2x4s, they drove 10- and 12-inch spikes through 2x6 walls into 6-inch posts and beams with 3-pound sledges. The sound of hammers on nails rang through the Good Friday afternoon. That ringing was accompanied by the church bells, drifting on the spring breeze from St. Thomas More Catholic Church just a couple of miles away.

Silence in the midst of noise

This symmetry with the holy day was not lost on me, even though Friends, being non-liturgical, don't go in for holy days or seasons. Still it was easy to recall other nails driven long ago—not through walls into posts, but through outstretched hands into rough wood. Even while carpenters yelled to each other, rough voices calling out measurements and grunting and cursing to set panels in place, I found silence in my soul. I was not sitting in a congregation listening to the last words of Jesus. Nor was I following the Stations of the Cross. But I was, in my soul, remembering, alongside those congregants. My arms grew weary of pounding and pulling nails. But at the same time I pondered Jesus' tiring journey that day. In spite of the noise, silence swathed my soul. Here I am, I thought, spending Good Friday in the company of carpenters. How fitting. I prayed for them. I prayed for me. I prayed for the world.

I heard a car pull up our long lane. It was my friend Aaron, a rabbi. My soul laughed—how right, how good. Carpenters and a rabbi on Good Friday! I thanked God for the silence of my soul that helped me see that the day was holy because God had breathed life into it. Arms weary, back bent from stacking reclaimed wood, I considered it a Good Friday.