A LITTLE SILENCE, PLEASE

These lines, from an early poem by Gerard Manley Hopkins, have been running through my head quite a bit recently. This is hardly surprising, as I was fortunate enough this year to be able to spend Holy Week at Burford Priory in Oxfordshire. Burford is a Benedictine house, so a stay there does not have to be silent. However, it is always a peaceful place to visit and it is good to be able to relax into the rhythm of the monastic offices, and to enjoy the beauty of the plainchant, as it is sung quietly and reflectively. I have been visiting Burford regularly for the last few years and I am always glad to be able to go back there.

Before I go any further I ought to say that this is not a travel piece (other people write those – I don’t do travel myself), nor am I on a commission from the monks in an attempt to drum up some business.

Instead I want to focus on one particular aspect of my visit, which ties in with Hopkins’ words that I used earlier. As Holy Week neared completion, all the services became simpler – starker even – to reflect the terrible events we were recollecting. Chants and hymns stopped, and some services were simply half an hour’s silence in chapel together. Those were the most moving, as far as I was concerned. Much as I love the beauty of the liturgy, and the music that goes with it, increasingly I am finding that words can get in the way when I am trying to pray. Somehow silence can give me the freedom just to be myself before God – it can pipe me to pastures still as Hopkins says, or, as the Liturgical Commission (following St John of the Cross) put it: "All your works echo the silent music of your praise", and I need to be silent myself in order to appreciate that music.

Silence is a strange thing really. There are times when it can be extremely threatening; when I come face to face with those parts of myself that I would really rather ignore if I could. Yet recognising those parts – acknowledging that they are part of me, that I can be lazy/angry/ungrateful or whatever it happens to be – is the first step to beginning to deal with them. It seems to me that honesty is the prerequisite for all prayer, and silence urges honesty upon me. To look back to the Hopkins again, silence has its own eloquence, which can be more powerful than words. For, even though it can be hard at times, over all I find silence very healing and positive. Just as it may draw me to look at the worst side of me, so it draws me back to the realisation that God loves me as I am now – when I am making a mess of things, when I have failed to improve as I promised myself I would – and it is that deep and unconditional love that restores me and gives me strength to go on.

I find such descriptions inspiring, but I cannot pretend that this corresponds to my normal experience. I would love to be able to forget "all created things" and contemplate God alone but, as I try to stop and do just that, I become aware of how many things are racing around inside my head, demanding attention.

Fighting with these thoughts, and trying to push them away, it counter productive. The more effort I put in, the stronger these distractions become. Instead I find it easier, and more helpful, to accept the thoughts and to lift them into the presence of God. So I find myself thinking of my family, my friends (maybe someone I haven’t thought of for years) my school (that bit of tension in the common room, that child who I am worried about) the international situation (Kosovo, Northern Ireland) and gently handing them over into God’s safe keeping. Then, bit by bit, if I give myself the time, my attention gets drawn to the Creator, rather then to his creations.

I began with Hopkins, let me finish with another of my favourite poets – John Donne – who says far more powerfully, everything I have been musing on in this article: