The Jesuit Guide To (Almost) Everything - James Martin [64]
You can delight in someone’s company wordlessly. As Margaret Silf recently wrote in a letter to me, you can be silent together, trusting that silence does not mean that God has left you. Or you may simply enjoy being in God’s presence.
Another way of looking at this comes from Aristotle, who believed that we become like the object of our contemplation. Have you ever met an elderly couple who seem to have taken on each other’s attributes? They share the same interests, they finish each other’s sentences, they sometimes even look alike. Likewise with God: the more time you spend with God, even in complete silence, when it feels that nothing is happening, the more you will grow, because being in the divine presence is always transformative. Think of Moses coming off Mount Sinai with his face shining. “Wasting time with God,” one of David’s favorite descriptions of prayer, even during silent moments, turns out not to be a waste of time at all.
But there is another reason we may have trouble with silence in prayer: we no longer value silence at all.
Electronic gadgets—iPods, BlackBerrys, cell phones, laptops— have created a world of constant stimulation. Most of this is good, efficient, and even fun. Why not have all your favorite tunes ready for when you’re stuck in a traffic jam? Why not have the television, radio, and Internet to keep up to date on the world around us? Those are the fruits of the digital age.
Yet are we growing addicted to these gadgets? The amount of media we consume each day continues to grow, and our ability to be detached from digital devices diminishes.
Just the other day, a film executive called me from her cell phone in the car to ask about a particular music selection she was hoping to use in a new movie about the Catholic Church. What would be the most appropriate Catholic hymn to use? she asked. When I started making a few suggestions, she said, “Wait, I have to text this to someone as we’re talking.” Amazed, I said, “You’re driving the car, talking to me on the phone, and texting someone all at once?”
We are gradually losing the art of silence. Of walking down the street lost in our own thoughts. Of closing the door to our rooms and being quiet. Of sitting on a park bench and just thinking. We may fear silence because we fear what we might hear from the deepest parts of ourselves. We may be afraid to hear that “still small” voice. What might it say?
Might it ask us to change?
You may have to disconnect in order to connect—disconnect with the world of noise to connect with silence, where God speaks to you in a different way. You cannot change our noisy world, but you can disconnect from time to time, to give yourself the gift of silence.
Being silent is one of the best ways to listen to God, not because God is not speaking to you during your noisy day, but because silence makes it easier to listen to your heart. To use the friendship analogy, sometimes you need to be silent and listen very carefully when your friend is trying to make a point. As my sister sometimes tells her children, “You have two ears and one mouth for a reason: listening is more important than talking.”
If your environment (inside and outside) is too noisy, it might be hard to hear what God, your friend, is trying to say.
THE NEW WAYS GOD HAS READY
While friendship is a terrific analogy for a relationship with God, it is not perfect. As I mentioned, none of our friends created the universe. And God, unlike any other friend, always remains constant. As Richard Leonard writes in his book Preaching to the Converted, “If you feel distant from God, guess who’s moved away from whom!”
Nonetheless, using Father Barry’s rich insight—thinking about prayer in terms of a personal relationship—can help to clarify your relationship with God. If you’re dissatisfied with your relationship with God, think about it in terms of a friendship, and consider ways that you might be neglecting that friendship and how you can nourish it.
That model can also make the spiritual life less