‘In our daily lives these occasions of mystic encounter are more frequent than we admit.’ Photo: Martin Katler/ Unsplash.
‘Such gilded moments are sacred lapses of time.’
Still going strong: Peter D Leeming offers a reflection on the value of silence
It was as if a hand had suddenly reached into our lives. Four of us, on a frosty winter’s afternoon returning from an outing, boisterous and in high spirits; just a few kilometres to go and we would be home. We turned off the main road, down a dark, narrow lane shaded by trees and almost at once hit black ice, going into a seemingly endless skid, sliding downhill completely out of control. All our driver could do was to strive as best he could to avoid the walls and trees on either side. An immense stillness fell upon us, bonding us into one. Nothing existed beyond this intense stillness inside our car, and the overwhelming sense of being moved into the unknown. Words were impossible, all we could do was watch – and await what would come. And yet, I can recall no sense of fear. I remember instead a profound feeling of awe at the speed at which we moved, and the sight of that dark road rushing towards us. In the profound stillness which held us in its grip I was conscious of nothing else but that icy road and the four of us in the car.
We had a narrow escape that day, thanks to the protective stillness which comes to our aid at moments of great danger, when we become totally attentive, ready to face whatever comes.
There are many forms of silence and many things that silence may contain: a silence full of anger for instance, or of expectancy, but there are no degrees of stillness; stillness holds only possibilities, of movement into a deeper state of awareness, of knowledge that is merely sensed. It may be born of silence or come to us in special ways but, whatever the occasion, we can recognise it as a state of being when we simply are ‘as we are in ourselves’, naked of all pretence and self-deception, open to receive and to know. In prolonged stillness we touch the mystic threshold beyond which lies the Way of contemplation and prayer. We can create silence and remain in it but true stillness is beyond our control. It comes to us as a gift, unsolicited and unbidden, at times in unexpected circumstances, catching us by surprise. Our Quaker practice of silence hopes to make way for its coming but we cannot command its presence. The author of the fourteenth-century The Cloud of Unknowing advises that those who desire to know the presence of God through prolonged stillness must feel moved to it by the ‘blind stirring of love’ and be willing to change their life.
In his great novel Life and Fate, Vasily Grossman describes the moment when the guns fall silent and peace descends upon the battlefield of Stalingrad. To the exhausted defenders it seems as if all power of thought and action has been abruptly switched off. In the deep well of stillness in which they find themselves they contemplate the enormity of their present moment. And so, when the Russian generals meet together in their command bunker, they sit down facing each other but are unable to utter a single word. The truth of this singular moment in their lives is finally known in communal stillness, shut away in a windowless room amid the tragic ruins of their city. The sharing of this stillness, its power and mystery and all that it gives them at this particular moment, in this particular place, will remain with them as a unique experience for the rest of their lives. ‘These minutes of silence were the finest of their lives. During these minutes they felt only human feelings; none of them could understand afterwards why it was they had known such happiness, and such sorrow, such love and such humility.’
Such are the fruits of stillness. At such moments all sense of the ordinary leaves us and time itself lapses; we are held in suspense, capable only of wonder. When shared with others this experience deepens and a powerful sense of oneness develops. In our daily lives these occasions of mystic encounter are more frequent than we care to admit, often too fleeting to record but unconsciously harvested and stored deep within. We are caught one day by the beauty of a stranger’s face, a child’s smile, a loving deed or phrase, something in nature or landscape, or in a painting. Such gilded moments are sacred lapses of time, when we stand spellbound, held in deep contemplation. ‘Things eternal infiltrate’ wrote the poet Rainer Maria Rilke – yes indeed, constantly in small ways the Divine finds its way to us, but sometimes it powerfully takes us unawares; the horizontal of life’s journey is suddenly intersected by the perpendicular and we discover ourselves in the presence of ‘something other’.
This surely is the experience that we seek in our Meetings for Worship. Quaker faith & practice states quite clearly: ‘We seek a gathered stillness.’ Sitting together in silence is merely the basis, our form of preparation, during which there must be a shedding of all things in the mind – for, as Dag Hammarskjöld puts it, ‘silence shatters… the mind’s armour’. We turn inward and wait with hearts open to receive. In Quaker worship we do not simply sit for an hour in deep reflection, rising occasionally to offer our considered thoughts. Our quiet waiting has an agreed purpose. We hope to experience for ourselves the deep sense of oneness that gathered stillness brings and which may deepen yet further into contemplation and a sense of presence, the transformative experience spoken for by generations of Friends. It is from this deep sense of oneness that memorable spoken ministry – experience sourced – and prayer, silent or vocal, eventually may arise. We wait in patient silence, surrounded by others similarly disciplined for that moment of encounter, or those moments – for there is often an ebb and flow within any given Meeting – to be granted. The gift is available but it is not assured. Sometimes we will be disappointed.
Others have found different paths into that experience. The French mystic Simone Weil found her way by repeating the Lord’s Prayer over and over again. ‘The effect of this practice is extraordinary and surprises me every time… At times the very first words tear my thoughts from my body and transport it to a place outside space… At the same time, filling every part of this infinity of infinity, there is silence, a silence which is not an absence of sound but which is the object of a positive sensation, more positive than that of sound… Sometimes, also, during this recitation… Christ is present with me in person.’
Speaking of his Programmed Meeting a Quaker pastor in the US once said: ‘We meet as separate, disunited souls and we sing ourselves into unity.’ Stillness does not mean an absence of sound. It is to be found in sound itself, within poetry and music, in singing or in chanting – in the steady breathing of the ocean on a sandy shore.
And many will think of festive services when choirs lead the congregation in joyful praise until a sudden descant frees the choral voice to scale its airy ladder note by note and soar high above the congregation’s supportive sound – and how, when the highest, purest note is cut and echoes in the roof space fade, enduring stillness fills the nave.
We are drawn into the heart of stillness by the promptings of love, the blind stirring spoken of by medieval mystics. Sensing its power and mystery we forget the phrases and theories of the restless mind, our cherished imagery and castles of belief and every form of thought, and stay to contemplate – and worship.
