Still life: David L Saunders on a foundational element

'Silence is an acoustic condition; stillness is about our state of being.’

I’m always disappointed when I hear the emphasis in descriptions of our worship put on ‘silence’; I am always encouraged when I hear the emphasis put on ‘stillness’. The one is essentially negative: the absence of words. The other is positive: it is about presence and being. Silence is the easy bit, it’s about what isn’t there. Stillness is the hard bit, it’s about what is there. Silence is an acoustic condition; stillness is about our state of being. The former is the means but the latter is the end.

Our contemporary culture is so noisy that silence can be a blessing in itself, but spiritually it only gets us part way. True stillness takes us beyond silence, below words, to our deepest centre. Early Friends knew this. Of the fourteen references to stillness in Quaker faith & practice, several are from our early days. ‘Be still and cool in thy own mind… Stand still and cease from thine own working’, said George Fox; ‘Sit down in pure stillness’, Alexander Parker; William Penn wrote of the ‘Still, small voice that speaks to us in this day’; James Naylor cautioned us to ‘stand still and act not’.

So stillness was a central, foundational element in Quaker worship and experience. Jesus models the balance between full-on action and engagement with times of retreat. We too need to make space in our lives to recharge our batteries. We can learn to do this, to create space to hear that ‘Still small voice’. Small acts of kindness and compassion reveal the eternal is here present among us. Those ‘thin’ places, where the ‘now’ and the ‘beyond’ meet are not just on mountain tops but can be all around us if we cultivate the eye to discern them.

Over the centuries, contemplatives and mystics have known, and sought to attain, a state of stillness. Do we still know and experience this? And how do we move from silence to stillness? Perhaps the clue is in that time-worn phrase ‘The practice of the presence of God’. Many of our achievements in life come about through hard work and practice. Athletic prowess involves the discipline of regular exercise. Musical and artistic excellence is built on hours of repetitive practice. The same applies to the things of the spirit. So perhaps what we need is the spiritual equivalent of the athlete’s workout routine. Making a regular space in our lives to put our busy minds on hold, giving priority to being. This may seem a self-indulgent luxury when there is so much to do – so many needs to be met; so many injustices to be confronted. Our Protestant heritage leans more towards ‘doing’ than ‘being; perhaps the Catholic heritage makes more room for the latter. The one is outward, and a necessary part of our social witness, but the other is inward and provides the engine power for action.

Many Friends find inspiration in the teachings of Richard Rohr and the institution he founded, the Centre for Action and Contemplation. Action and contemplation are not alternatives but complementary – it’s not a case of either/or, it’s both/and. During a retreat a priest once summarised for me the Jesuit pattern of prayer: ‘I’m here, you’re here, thank you, sorry, help.’ So prayer starts with ‘being’, with a sense of presence. So let us ‘mind’ the stillness, seek the place of being, the place of encounter, the place of power.

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