“Be still and know that I am God”
Psalm 46:10
There is something very special and very sacred about silence. As an extrovert, I never thought I would say that! However, my own journey into silence has led me to value the gifts silence offers, the deep connectedness with God I feel through silence, and the way it nourishes my soul. Drinking deeply from its well, it is utterly life-giving.
I love the silent times at the Bield – the silences during morning and evening prayers; the silent retreats we offer where we sit in quietly together stilling in the chapel before going our different ways; Sunday afternoons when the retreat centre falls quiet and only the sounds of nature gently stirring in the background can be heard. Each of these is gift.
The Bield reopened at the beginning of February after a time of winter dormancy to eight guests who came for a silent retreat. To witness them, some of them encountering silence for the first time, journeying from fear of discovering their true selves to delight in embracing the gifts that silence offers and surprise at how God speaks to them through it, was very humbling and special. We’re looking forward to offering more one day silent retreats and a longer silent retreat when the whole centre will be in silence later in the year. Keep an eye on our web site calendar for more information.
I wonder what silence might offer you. Some of you may be well practiced in cultivating silence in your lives. However, some of you may never have experienced it. You might be a little apprehensive, wondering if you can really cease doing or talking and be still, worried about how you will pass the time, anxious about what you may discover about yourself or God. These are all valid wonderings. I can only speak from my own experience, but the experience of silent retreats has been one of the greatest joys and gifts in my life. I only wish I had discovered them sooner.
Valerie
Dark
Malling Abbey Church
Here in the dark
do not speak.
Only
listen, hold your peace
and wait for the wordless gift:
the lifting of the lark's voice,
choice and sweet,
repeating its high note of love,
speaking your name,
calling you over and over
again.
Do not speak.
Let the visiting bird,
silence, do her work:
sift your heart,
heal what is broken,
sundered apart,
restore what is plundered,
repair the rift,
knit to one piece the unravelled mind,
scattered and split.
Wait for the gift,
the lifting of the warm,
beating wings,
the sudden shudder
under the brooding breast.
You must enterhere in the dark
where the heart sings.
Do not speak.
By Nicola Slee, Praying Like a Woman,(London: SPCK, 2004), p.43.
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