Monastery offered time for reflection
As I entered the breakfast room, I noticed a woman seated near the window and thought she looked sad. It was 7 a.m., the first day of a silent retreat at a Benedictine monastery. A light fog seemingly danced outside. I nodded, smiled, and fixed my granola and banana breakfast.
The six-day conference covered aspects of The Rule of St. Benedict (RB), a small book of 73 chapters outlining how to live in community. I was the only Protestant attending; regulated silence offered me a new experience. The conference gave a chance to reflect on silence’s many dimensions.
The Rule intrigued me, for I had studied Benedict and his sister Scholastica and written on them. Composed in the early 500’s, The Rule is relevant today mainly because of Benedict’s keen insights on humanity and his administrative skill; scripture permeates The Rule. Benedict (c. 480-547) established 12 monasteries and is considered the father of Western monasticism. Many scholars credit monasticism with saving learning and knowledge in Europe during the Dark Ages.
The lifestyle Benedict outlines of worship, prayer, work, rest, obedience, and service resonates with me. A silent retreat’s purpose is to hear “whatever God is saying to you,” I was told in advance. Silence was expected throughout.
Getting accustomed to silence
The retreat’s routine included morning and afternoon lectures of 35 minutes. When the speaker was funny, we “unsilently” laughed. As an academic, I am used to a question period with lively interaction and sometimes unpleasant confrontation. But at this retreat, questions “distract the listeners,” I was told in advance. Furthermore, Benedict forbids grumbling (RB 40.9). The speaker answered questions privately and posted appointment times.
Silence proved companionable. Walks around the monastery’s well-kept grounds produced friendships. We admired magnificent flowers and varied trees together. We understood each other without words.
Monastery cafeteria meals proved unexpectedly pleasant. Often a CD of a concerto filled the communal silence; sometimes a reader read from a devotional book.
With observation, one learns a lot about others during a silent meal. For instance, a sister with lovely carriage arrived first at our table but waited until all were seated before eating. When she rose to get us coffee, she left her cloth napkin on her chair, signaling return. She had very nice manners.
Two dimensions of silence occur in music and poetry. When a score says “Tacit”, the orchestra—to the timpani!—stops. The word Selah occurs 71 times in the Psalms. Scholars think it means a pause, a musical interlude, or a chance to ponder.
Silence is a part of our everyday lives
Love incorporates silence. The Rodgers and Hammerstein musical South Pacific captures the intimacy of soon-to-be sweethearts this way: “Some enchanted evening, you may see a stranger, You may see a stranger, across a crowded room, And somehow you know, you’ll know even then, That somehow you’ll see her again and again” Silence also has its dark, manipulative side. Calculated silence, a form of passive aggression, seeks to control or weaken another person.
Playwright Robert Bolt explores silence in A Man for All Seasons. Sir Thomas More avoids telling Henry VIII his explicit views on the king’s desire to divorce Catherine and marry Anne Boleyn. He sidesteps Henry’s pressure by wit, lawyerly skill, and silence. At his sham trial, More quotes a legal maxim, “qui tacet consentire,” and explains, “silence gives consent.” But Henry demands exactness. Shoddy evidence and a perjured witness lead to More’s conviction of High Treason. More tells his executioner, “You send me to God.”
Silence can be misinterpreted. I had dubbed the breakfast woman distant. Yet when the retreat ended and normal speaking resumed, she bee-lined me. “Who ARE YOU?” she queried loudly with warmth and interest while grabbing me in a swift hug. Laughingly, we introduced ourselves. I had misunderstood her, this merry woman with an engaging grin. Her intensity bespoke an “esteem for silence” (RB 6.2). Her joy showed the Lord had spoken.
Dr. Robin Gallaher Branch, a Fulbright scholar, teaches Old Testament and New Testament classes as an adjunct professor at Christian Brothers University in Memphis. She can be reached at rbranch3 @cbu.edu.