Connecting to Each Other: Practice Silence-Part 1

August 18th was the eighth anniversary of my father’s death. For some reason on this anniversary, his presence and memory touched me on an even deeper level. I’m wondering if it is because I’ve been trying to practice silence more this past year. I’ve been rereading the book, Silence – The Mystery of Wholeness by Robert Sardello, and perhaps it is this rereading that has me thinking about my father and the way he practiced silence. My dad was not one to waste words or fill the air with chatter, and he didn’t need to always be heard. He said what he said carefully and meant it. He practiced silence. He took the time to listen and to be open to other people’s experiences.

Now, after his passing, I feel he is still listening. I have a deeper sense of closeness to him when I practice silence. When I make myself quiet – not talking but listening and observing the world around me – my relationship with my father grows richer.  Without the usual noise and busyness of navigating familial relationships, I believe practicing silence has brought my father closer to me. Practicing silence and embracing the quiet has in some ways, brought me closer to my father even more than when he was alive on this earth.

Fortunately, the opportunity to practice silence is ever-present. Anyone can do it. It is a process. You can find silence everywhere. The great part is that the ability to find and practice silence is available within our own heartbeats and in other natural phenomena such as windswept clouds. 

I often experience silence by letting my thoughts float away and noticing the sensations within my heart. I experience silence by watching the swaying pine trees in my backyard. Interestingly, I also find silence in other people, especially when I pause to acknowledge their struggle or suffering. This silence then gives birth to empathy for what they may be going through. Instead of judging their outward behavior or reactions, I find that I am more open to understanding their experiences.

An “opening” happened just the other day. I was sitting in traffic and I noticed a young man who was angry and upset about the cars not stopping while he was in the crosswalk trying to cross the street. Even though I stopped my car so that he could cross, the young man was still upset about people ignoring him and putting his life in danger. It was obvious that he included me in that group. And then it happened. Practicing silence made me do something I’ve never done. I rolled down my window and said to him: “At the end of the day, please remember me and this one car that did stop.” I went on to say to him: “Take care of your heart!” A smile broke out on his face, and he touched his heart and then gestured to me. Practicing silence brought me to that moment. I could have judged him for being angry at the people who would not stop their cars. I could have judged him for prejudging me, but practicing silence opened my heart. Practicing silence opened me to speaking with a stranger. We were able to see each other and share in each other’s humanity despite the stress and dangerous situation of the crosswalk.

Practicing silence then brought me to another deeper awakening. You see the man in the crosswalk happened to be Black. I started to wonder and reflect on what it must feel like to be invisible in the cultural and societal crosswalk of life in the United States: invisible to an officer of the law kneeling into your neck, a system of justice that assumes your guilt, a bank officer who uses a red pen to keep you invisible from a neighborhood, a news host who tells you to shut up and just dribble, a ‘well-meaning” teacher who has given up on you without knowing it, an employer that just couldn’t see past your skin color, to your talents and character-to name a few.

I realized that although the young man was angry about being ignored and put in danger, his anger could not be anywhere near the resentment and rage that lives in a person who makes others invisible. It could not be anywhere near the resentment and rage of a society that participates in and supports a system that renders people like him invisible, so as not to relate to his humanity and struggle. Think of the cold, intense anger it takes to make somebody invisible as if they don’t matter. It is so easy for people to notice and declaim the anger we see roiling in the streets; it is so easy for people to attribute that anger to the Black Lives Matter movement. In fact, the person who is currently occupying the White House has called them a “hate group”. It is not so easy to see the nurtured rage and resentment that lives in the soul of our country, the rage and resentment that make black lives invisible. 

The good news is that practicing silence will make us aware of the anger and the resentments that we do carry around. And if we risk entering into silence, it will help us make different choices with our anger(s) – choices like using it to make one another visible to each other and ourselves. Instead of being angry at the man in the crosswalk, I chose to speak to him and acknowledge our shared humanity and open myself to his struggle. I could have ignored him or decided he had an unwarranted chip on his shoulder and kept driving. What may be perceived as anger and resentment by others can then become seen courage and honesty and ultimately justice-if we work for it; if we open ourselves up to others’ experiences. Practicing silence can do so much to heal us and make us whole as individuals, as a people, as a society.

Be well,

Bill