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Meditation on Silence
by Karen Little
Joshua 5:13-6:20

Hab 2:20: But the Lord is in his holy temple: let all the earth be silent before him.

There are all kinds of silences. Some silences are beneficial and greatly healing. We know how blessed silence can be when we walk out in a cool forest on a hot summer day or stand on the beach to hear the waves or stand in the midst of new snow falling on a winter's ever. We can recognize good silences when the fussy baby has finally fallen asleep.

Some silences reminds us of what used to be and can be a reminder of our losses. Not too long ago I had a friend who had a stroke and she was robbed of her words. She had always identified herself as a story teller and all of a sudden her stories were gone. Oh, they still clattered around in her head but she couldn't get them out and so her silence was painfully frustrating. Most of us know what this silence can be like-perhaps not by a stroke but by any number of life events-Alzheimer Disease, loss of hearing, kids moving away, divorce, and death. There are also the silences of punishment. Many of us have been wounded by "the silent treatment." There is a painful silence when truth cannot be spoken or when promises are empty vessels.

When we are in grief the silences of our houses can be very troublesome. Often when I telephone families I can hear the television or radio in the background. Now I know some people (like my son) just have to have noise all the time. Yet there can be a sense of restlessness or escape in the ceaseless rattle of inanimate noise sources.

We have been doing a series of meditations focusing on silence at the church I attend regularly. It has stirred in me a lot of response because I long so for true silence. I believe there is also a hunger in our society for times of quiet because we are so often bombarded with frenetic noise. I was trying to think through my ideas and experiences of silence at work one day a couple of weeks ago. When I'm thinking I have a tendency to sit for a while then I get up and pace. One of my co-workers asked me what was going on as I paced back and forth down the hallway. I blurted out, "What do you think about silence?" It kind of set her back but she gamely tried to respond to this thrust out of the blue, "I think it is a good thing. I don't get any of it but in theory it sounds wonderful." Well, I think it sounds wonderful too and it scares me silly because I sense there is a tremendous amount of power stored up in silence.

Do you remember the story of the battle of Jericho? There seems to be several stories about just exactly how it was done. In some the army was in front, in one the priest trumpeters led the crowd. Regardless, what I understand from the story is how the "silent people" were an integral part of the operation.

We read in Joshua 6 that seven priest blowing seven trumpets were to walk ahead of the ark of the covenant. An armed guard was to walk in front of the priests and behind the ark as they paraded around the outside of the city walls of Jericho. Then behind all of this the people were to tag along silently. Around the city they went-this rag-tag army, church, and tribe. Trumpeter blowing proudly, cheeks extended and face slowly growing more red the longer they blew. The armed guard most likely hiding their heads between their shoulder blades trying to hide themselves from being taken as part of this weird assembly. But the most amazing spectacle had to be this group of people marching behind, completely silent. I ask you, Have any of you ever tried to keep a line of twenty kids quiet for five minutes as they wait their turn? Easy right?.Joshua had told them "Do not give a war cry, do not raise your voices, do not say a word until the day I tell you to shout. Then shout!"

Six days they do this. Six days the kids don't stub their toes and cry out. Six days they don't push their sisters and brothers and exclaim "Mom, Hezibah is walking too close. Dad, make Achon stop looking at me!" Six days the women don't chatter to their neighbors. Six days the men don't try to tell anyone how to do something. Six days the people walk silently side-by-side, plodding around this little city. The words they want to say building up inside of them. Six days they bite their tongues. On the seventh day they all get up at day break and begin this strange parade again. They make it around the city just as they had the six prior days but this time Joshua motions them to go around again. No one argues with him. No one exclaims, "This is a dumb thing to do!" No one mutters under their breath "I have dishes to do!" Again they shuffle behind the blowing trumpets silently. Seven times they do this march. Do not say a word." Was their instructions and miraculously they obeyed. I mean that literally. A miracle! Thirteen times they walked around this city silently. One circle around for six days and seven circles around on the seventh day. Finally all this silence built up like water behind a dam. Every man, woman, and child had a full store of faith. Then Joshua said "Shout!" and wow did they shout. The trumpet sounded long and loud and the people gave a LOUD SHOUT and the walls came tumblind down...

I said all this in order to say: Often we think this story is about the loud shout and the walls coming down but in reality it is about the silence. It is about the power garnered through the great discipline of days of quiet, spent with the community. It is my firm belief that the people could not have been silent for seven trips around the city on day one. They had to build up their stamina for silence. Six days of one silent trip to make it possible for one day of seven silent trips. Silence takes a tremendous amount of conditioning. We are not comfortable with silence to start with. But if we keep exercising quiet we will get more proficient at it.

I remember when we first started allowing silence in our service in the churches I pastored. We started slowly and I tried to include something for the folks to read - or think about - or analyze and then I would watch the second hand go around on my watch. At 45 seconds I would begin to hear feet moving and bulletins rustling. We lasted for a little bit more than a minute. We did this for months and by then I had increased our silent time to two minutes. Maybe if we had got out and marched around the church we might have lasted longer but two minutes was about what people could take. Six silent days worth. We never made it to the seventh day.

We needed to keep exercising quiet so that we could get proficient at it. I said some really nasty words just now. Exercise and discipline. Most of us have heard four letter dirty words and some of us occasionally use them but I'm here to tell you that sometimes the dirtiest words have eight and ten letters. Exercise and discipline. Silence is not the absence of noise. Silence is the life filled with discipline, honed by exercise.

I am also convinced that the reason why we should make the effort to discipline ourselves is for the power to effect change in our world. Spiritual exercise and discipline can transform both the positive aspects and the negative qualities of silence into a storehouse of power. Each of us have a Jericho, a place in our lives which needs to be overcome, or over which walls we need to walk. Our Jerichos may all be different from each others. Our Jerichos may be hurt feelings, buried anger, tough decisions to make, family relationships which are broken, children who are in trouble, parents who need to be cared for, and you, I am certain, can add your own Jericho's in your head.

We have been told and we know it is true that when we practice silence we are giving God a chance to speak to us. What we sometimes don't recognize is just what the voice of God sounds like. How do we know when we have tapped into the power of God? I know when I begin to hear my own thoughts. Running from our own thoughts all the time makes it impossible for us to hear what our own wisdom is telling us to do for healing and wholeness.

I know I have tapped into God's power when I can hear the voices of the people who have gone before me. We have known these people intimately and they reside in our hearts. We often know what they would have advised or what they might have done so when we drown out these voices with constant noise we have deprived ourselves again of their wisdom. For those of us in a faith community we have the voices of such a great cloud of witnesses who have gone on ahead of us. They can be a source of great strength and a well of joy.

In the middle of the night when I am going through my tapes of the day I know I can hear God's voice when a truth one of you has spoken keeps ringing through all of the mind garble which come from taping over used tapes.

My reaction to hearing God's voice is the same as the Israelites. I want to shout a loud "Ah hah" and watch my Jericho walls come tumbling down.