Silence

After Compline each night we begin the Great Silence, a roughly 12 hour block (from the end of Compline until 8:30 the next morning) of time when we don't talk to anyone. This includes breakfast (which I told you about below), but also the entire overnight period.

This sounds boring, but silence is interesting in it's own way. I don't think I ever get true silence anymore. We live on a busy street, and within the house, there is always the sound of something running (my marine aquarium has pumps running 24/7). Right now it's so quiet here that the sound of my laptop fan is noticeable and the sound of my fingers typing seems loud.

But silence gives us space... space to reflect, space to notice things, space to think.

One of my fondest memories of my Dad were coming down early in the morning to find him just sitting in silence at the kitchen table drinking a cup of coffee. Dad always made Holy coffee - you made up a pot of instant Maxwell House and then boiled the Hell out of it for the rest of the morning (it just kept getting thicker and thicker). Dad was always the silent type - except when he was grunting at you - and I remember wondering what he was thinking about (I still do).

Here at the monastery, walking in silence opens up my other senses. There is so much artwork around you can't move without coming across something with religious significance. There are candles, icons, stained glass windows, sculptures, flower arrangements, potpourri bowls, you name it and they have it. When I'm walking around talking with others, however, it all recedes into the background. The times for silence open me up to noticing these treasures.

It's interesting how things I would find boring in the real world, suddenly become interesting once you force yourself to slow down and observe.

Before Compline this evening, I went into the Chapel to sit in silence for 20 minutes. I just wanted to notice the place. Some light of one form of another was softly illuminating the gold leaf on the icon covered cross up front. The air was still scented with faint wisps from the incense that they burned last night. It was so quiet I could hear buzzing in my ears (I've heard that's the blood coursing through the capillaries near your ear drum) and the faint ticking of a clock a few rooms away. The signs that "this place is holy" literally hit all your senses, and I realized that even as I was noticing all this stuff, I was engaged in a form of prayer as people began to quietly enter for the service.