Silence in the Spirit’s Chosen Praxis of Listening and Deliberation Toward Regeneration
At a recent meeting of an ad hoc committee formed for the specific purpose of interviewing a potential candidate for a staff position, one of the members appeared not to participate in the process as much as I had expected or experienced in previous times, at least verbally/orally. Upon speaking with them afterward, I learned that they had felt led to intentionally exercise the discipline of silence in certain venues for a season [of ministry], toward listening well in the course of our deliberations. I thought the following quotes from this month’s Company of Pastors/Order of Elders web site appropo in relation….
May 6  Violence is a form of excess. But loquacity is a form of excess too, one that risks doing violence to the very experiences it struggles to make sense of. This is why our language must be measured and tempered, rather than used to fill silences, or speak that which the sufferer cannot speak. And this is why we should learn the value of silence, seeing it not as a sign of indifference or resignation, but of respect…silence as a deliberate choice.  Michael Jackson, “The Prose of Suffering and the Practice of Silence,� Spiritus
http://pcusa.org/pastorselders/dailyquote#may6
May 7  Speech builds the village; silence regenerates the world.  Michael Jackson, “The Prose of Suffering and the Practice of Silence,� Spiritus
http://pcusa.org/pastorselders/dailyquote#may7
May 15  If our life is poured out in useless words, we will never hear anything in the depths of our hearts, where Christ lives and speaks in silence. We will never be anything, and in the end, when the time comes for us to declare who and what we are, we shall be found speechless at the moment of the crucial decision: for we shall have said everything and exhausted ourselves in speech before we had anything to say.  Thomas Merton, No Man is an Island.
http://pcusa.org/pastorselders/dailyquote#may15
May 21  Speak only when your words improve the silence.  Quaker saying
http://pcusa.org/pastorselders/dailyquote#may21
June 21st, 2007 at 6:33 pm
It was awesome to see you Rexy.