When you speak, how will that improve on the silence? –Robert K. Greenleaf
Speaking – begins in silence. Silence is a gift. Silence creates space for us to reflect and consider before we speak. Silence helps us limit our shooting from the lip. I often shoot from the lip; I speak the first thing that comes to my mind. When I pause and reflect I more often than not then speak from my heart. This type of silence is a discipline of the mind, heart and soul. A discipline, by its very nature, requires commitment, repetition, time, focus, practice, stumbling and getting up, and consistency. This type of silence, often referred to as ‘reflection’ by some, is crucial for me the speaker and for the one who will be listening.
As the one who will be speaking, I pause in order to look inside (to seek out and search) in order to discern what I want to say or perhaps what I am called to say from a place of knowing as well as from a place of not knowing. As the one who will be listening, I pause in order to prepare myself to embrace the voice and words of the speaker; I prepare myself to seek to understand. The Quakers know the value and importance of ‘silence’ and they know the value and importance of ‘speaking.’ In his Journal, Johan Woolman quotes a Quaker elder: It is a sin to speak, if you’re not moved to speak. It is also a sin not to speak, if you’re moved to speak. The key, of course, is to be able to discern who is doing the ‘moving’ – for the Quaker, the ‘mover’ is the Holy Spirit (not a bad ‘mover’ if you ask me). So I hold a question: What is the spirit that moves me to speak?
Those who know me, or those who have participated in sessions I have guided, know that I love to frame questions – especially questions to ‘hold’ and questions that seek ‘clarification.’ Of course, I also ask questions that are not really questions – they are statements in the guise of questions; they move my agenda along. I catch myself asking such questions when I preface a question with Don’t you think that. . .? The purpose of questions, I think, is to help provide space for silence, for reflection, for searching and for seeking. The purpose is to help tap into the wisdom of the other (of course one must believe that the other has wisdom to offer).
As the one who will speak or as the one who will listen, it is also crucial that I seek to become aware of my deep assumptions, beliefs, core values, guiding life principles, prejudices, stereotypes and life experiences for all of these will influence me both as speaker and as listener. Socrates’ admonition of Know thyself is helpful at this time. Even when I am aware of some of these (I cannot be fully aware of all of them) I still project them onto the other and when I do my speaking and my listening are ‘contaminated.’ The antidote is seeking clarification and this requires more silence (reflection) and more questions that seek clarification.
All of this takes time. Because we live in a culture where it is the norm to speak first, and then think (if we think at all), the disciplines of silence and reflection are not honored, dare I say, they are not valued? Hence, most of us do not listen well and most of us are ‘misunderstood.’ I will end today with a quote from the great Quaker William Penn:
True silence is the rest of the mind, and is to the spirit what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment.