Recently, New York Times, opinion writer and Anglican priest Tish Harrison Warren argued that wealth can buy silence and that many of us can't afford to escape noisy urban lives impacted by cell phone, leaf blowers, and circling helicopters.
She's right in a way. It is quieter in the elite airport lounges than in the throbbing concourses. Silence is more likely on a secluded private island than it is on the municipal beach. Even when well-meaning people try to create zones of silence, as Claremont Presbyterian has in its new meditation and prayer garden, it can only diminish the neighborhood noise not create silence.
But there are ways to get to silence other than paying for it.
The people who live in Claremont are fortunate in many ways; one of them is the proximity to near-silence. The town backs up to mountains, mostly National Forest land, and a 15 minute drive and 10 minute walk can take one to a quiet place. Planes still fly overhead, but clammer of urban America can be left behind more quickly and much more cheaply than flying to a private island.
“Creating profound silence has much more to do with calming the mind than eliminating auditory inputs. ”
The other way to get silence is through practice. Creating profound silence has much more to do with calming the mind than eliminating auditory inputs. You can't buy it with dollars or earn it with social status. It requires practice.
It is exactly that practice that we undertake together on Friday mornings when we gather for Centering Prayer. When one first tries the discipline of silent meditation, the mind wanders relentlessly. It is difficult to hold one's mind in silence for more than ten seconds. Gradually, with practice, the capacity for creating interior silence increases.
I am not sure that I have reached the place where in Fr. Richard Keating's words I can rest in God. Maybe a short cat nap. But the practice does pay off.
Join us on Friday morning and find out.
If you have not yet registered for our online Friday morning at 8 am meditations, and wish to, please email me at charlestaylorkerchner@gmail.com
Photo: Kristina Flour via Unsplash