Connecting Silences

Every Wednesday morning I walk a block from my home to the local county jail to lead a worship service for women there. Attendance varies from week to week. There are some who’ve been there for several months, while others have just arrived. I never know who will show up but I am always certain that I will learn something from my time with these women. I am verbally challenged and often my time there exhausts me. I find it difficult to articulate answers to many of the questions they have. I have to work hard to respond thoughtfully and carefully to the daily struggles they face. I search for ways to encourage these women as they deal with addictions. More often than not, I leave feeling inadequate for such a large task and such an important ministry.

Each Wednesday morning with these women I begin our time of worship together with a centering silence. As I point out every week, God’s presence cannot be shut out by the cement walls or the locked and barred doors. And this time of silence is to place ourselves in the place where our hearts and minds are open to listen to God, to experience God’s presence and to allow that presence to change our lives. Most of the time our “silence” is rarely silent. There are always banging and locking doors, loud speakers, and people’s voices through the cement block walls. In spite of those distractions, I encourage my friends to connect to a deeper place in their hearts and minds where God can be heard and where Jesus: our Savior, teacher, Lord and friend is present to teach us. In those moments, with women for whom society has placed out of sight and out of mind, God refocuses my life and my heart. In those moments I pray for and experience Divine Intervention in my life and in their lives.

Every year my husband and I represent our Yearly Meeting in Washington DC at the annual board meeting for the Friends Committee on National Legislation. It is an exciting weekend as we gather with Friends from all over the US. We meet new people every year, but many we know and visit with on a yearly basis. I am blessed by these growing personal relationships and our connections through shared concerns and through times of worship together. Each morning of the weekend the 200-300 Friends break up into small groups of 12-16 and spend over an hour in worship. Friends in each small group are encouraged to share vocal ministry out of the silence.

I appreciate the spoken ministry in these times of worship, but I find the long moments of silence in the presence of God with these Friends life giving. Just as I find the silence with my friends in jail and silence with my faith community each Sunday morning life giving. In the act of gathering for worship and sitting in silence with those of differing backgrounds, lifestyles, and experiences of God that I am always challenged to refocus my life and my heart. I am challenged to recognize and respond to God’s presence and God’s work in each individual. I pray for and experience Divine Intervention in those moments of silence. A Divine Intervention that takes me beyond my agenda, my hopes and fears, my verbal deficiencies, and connects me to what God wants to be about in our lives, our faith community and our world.

I need Divine Intervention in my life to connect my silences. To live out of the silence and communion with God, to connect my heart to God’s heart. To connect the words I find so difficult to articulate with God’s message and to connect my search for God with those in the very same search. It is only through this connection that I can experience hope for those who are at times hopeless, where I can find healing for addictions and for my own sins and failures, and where I can find strength to engage our world in every way possible. And in connecting the silences I find God at work in our world...in every way possible.