In addition to being the fertile ground for self-understanding and healthy self-care as well as the sanctuary for contemplative prayer, the silence of a listening heart is also the seedbed for reverent relationships, social compassion, and cosmic concern. Where there is no silence there is little listening. Where there is little listening there is little personal connection, loving compassion, concern for justice, or communing with the earth.
But where silence is cherished, honored, nurtured, and practiced, where silence is not just an outward behavior but an inner participation of the soul in life, where silence is a way of revering and evoking the aliveness of others, God, and the earth, then silence is full of care, oriented toward solidarity with the poor and marginalized, expressed as sympathy and concern for creation, potentially transformative and healing, and part of the listening and responsive heart of God.
Silence is not only an indispensable part of a healthy and holy life but is at the heart of vital ministry as well, whether enacted by an ordained minister, spiritual guide, lay minister, or a committed person of faith. So much that goes under the guise of Christian ministry today lacks the kind of silence necessary to ground it substantively in the contemplative Christ and guide it in the spirit of the Beatitudes. Silence that makes real listening possible deepens the soulfulness of those who minister, guarding them against the nemeses that sadly have become the hallmarks of so much ministry today in the form of egoism, presumption, and dogmatic certitude, on the one hand, or in the form of shallowness, unconscious neediness, faddish kitsch, or spiritual schlock, on the other hand. Genuine, prayerful silence, for both persons and communities, is the spiritual antidote to the contemporary twin temptations of religious flash and religious fluff.♦
Source: Daniel J. Miller, [a work in progress], © 2009.
Reflection:
Do you see any relationship between silence and solidarity?
What might that relationship be?
How might silence inform, form, and transform solidarity?
How might solidarity form, inform, and transform silence?