A PAUSE FOR SILENCE AND SOLITUDE

The Rev. Mark Ward
Unitarian Universalist Church of Asheville

Asheville, NC

December 18, 2005

READING

From “The Pond in Winter” in Walden, by Henry David Thoreau

After a still winter night, I awoke with the impression that some question had been put to me, which I had been endeavoring in vain to answer in my sleep, as what – how – when – where?

But there was dawning Nature, in whom all creatures live, looking in at my broad windows with serene and satisfied face, and no question on her lips.

I awoke to an answered question, to Nature and daylight. The snow lying deep on the earth dotted with young pines, and the very slope of the hill on which my house is placed, seemed to say, Forward!

Nature puts no questions and answers none which we mortals ask. She has long ago taken her resolution, “O Prince, our eyes contemplate with admiration and transmit to the soul the wonderful and varied spectacle of this universe. The night veils without a doubt a part of this glorious creation; but day comes to reveal to us this great work, which extends from earth even into the plains of the ether.”

SERMON

So, what did you hear in our silence together? Our lives are so filled with sound, it can be a little unsettling to spend some time in intentional silence. I become especially aware of it at this time of year, when it seems that no matter where I go, everything I do has a soundtrack of Christmas carols underneath it.

Improving technology has made it possible for us to carry the sound of our choice everywhere, whether it be the sound systems in our cars, the I-pods in our pockets or the Bluetooths (or is it Blueteeth?) hooked to our ears. I understand the comfort and convenience of all these wonders, but I’m also aware that amid all this din we have precious little time to, as the saying goes, hear ourselves think. Well, that’s not it, exactly. It’s not really the gears turning upstairs that I’m talking about. What I really mean is time for reflection, for rumination: time to close off the input from our senses and just let things stew.

Our market-driven culture defines this as “downtime” or “time off the clock.” If the meter isn’t ticking, your productivity is taking a hit. And it’s true: if we define ourselves in terms of what we produce, what we consume, what we accumulate, time spent out of touch with the rest of the world is time that is lost. Yet, what a paltry way to define ourselves: paltry and ultimately false. Beyond what we make, what we buy, what we use is a deeper truth, an identity we catch glimpses of that is illuminated in no advertising jingle or hit song. It is more subtle and elusive.

Quaker writer Parker Palmer compares this identity, this self, to a wild animal that hides in the forest, that is tough, resilient, resourceful, savvy and self-sufficient, but also, shy. This self does not show itself readily. It watches and waits. It takes everything in.

“Just like a wild animal,” Palmer says, “it seeks safety in the dense underbrush, especially when other people are around. If we want to see a wild animal, we know that the last thing we should do is go crashing through the woods yelling for it to come out. But if we will walk quietly into the woods, sit patiently at the base of a tree, breathe with the earth and fade into our surroundings, the wild creature might put in an appearance.”

Palmer makes the point that for all the complaints about individualism and self-centeredness in our culture, “there is scant evidence for the claim that a ‘cult of me’ reigns supreme in the land.” Instead, he says, “I have met too many people who suffer from an empty self. They have a bottomless pit where their identity should be – an inner void they try to fill with competitive success, consumerism, sexism, racism, or anything that might give them the illusion of being better than others. We embrace attitudes and practices such as these not because we regard ourselves as superior but because we have no sense of self at all.”

Our task, then, is not to comb through the vast array of media outlets to find an identity to adopt, but to come to know the identity that is already our own, furtive and shy at times, but ours all the same. It is in the solitude of silence, I want to suggest, in “downtime,” that we can begin to make contact with this self.

It is no coincidence that many faiths point to the experience of solitude as being where religious awakenings happen. Mohammed was sequestered in a cave when he heard the angel Gabriel command him to recite. Siddharta Gautama planted himself in meditation under a pipal tree to prepare himself for the final stages of awakening. And after receiving the blessing of John the Baptist, Jesus left for 40 days in the wilderness to come to terms with the ministry that had been laid before him.

Solitude, wrote Henri Nouwen, “is the furnace of transformation. Without solitude we remain victims of our society and continue to be entangled in the illusions of the false self.” It is the place where we sort through those illusions, examine our lives and seek to find the truth of who we are within ourselves and in relation to the larger world.

Getting to that place, though, is not easy. We do not readily discard the images of ourselves and the world that we have cobbled together over the years. The New Testament offers an example of the challenges of that struggle in the Book of Matthew, where it depicts the temptations of Satan during Jesus’ days in solitude: enticements Satan offers to make Jesus powerful and exalted, temptations intended to play on his vanity, on that empty sense of self-importance.

We recognize these temptations in every hawker’s scheme that comes our way, the promises of flashy goods to fill our sense of emptiness. With Jesus, we recognize that the path of integrity calls us to respond not to the distractions around us, but to an inner truth.

The Buddhist scripture depicts a similar scene on the eve of the Buddha’s enlightenment when the tempter Mara tries to draw Gautama out of his meditation under the guise of the god of Love, the god of War and finally a whirlwind of fire and rain. Mara finally asks what witness Gautama has to his claim to the sacred seat of enlightenment, and Gautama merely reaches out and touches the ground before him. “The earth is my witness,” he said.

It is a powerful gesture, for it suggests what lies at the end of this journey of self-searching. It is not the lifting of some veil to a magical reality underlying a dull, plodding existence, but coming back to earth, becoming grounded in the truth of the here and now, in the nature that resides within.

The pagan tradition teaches that the Winter Solstice is the time of year to engage in this inner search. The word solstice, after all, means literally “the stopping of the Sun.” It is the moment when the Sun, which ordinarily moves each day up or down along the ecliptic, pauses at its lowest point. The sun’s influence on us, the life-giving energy it bestows, is at its lowest ebb.

It is a time, as the narrator of Owl Moon puts it, when we must make our own heat, become aware of our own resources, and prepare for our own awakening, just as the Pagan Winter Solstice celebrates the rebirth of the Sun. The world now is quiet, at rest but also alive with possibility. What possibilities lie in store for us, how might we make ourselves aware of them and bring them into being?

Doris Grumbach writes in “Fifty Days of Solitude” that she secreted herself at midwinter alone in a cabin in the Maine woods hoping she might hear, in her words, “news of an inner terrain.”

“My intention,” she writes, “was to discover what was in there, no matter how deeply hidden. Was I all outside? Was there enough inside that was vital, that would sustain and interest me in my self-enforced solitude?” From the perspective of the modern person, she writes, “We are what we are told we are. . . . Rarely if ever do we think to look within for knowledge of ourselves.”

At first, Grumbach says, she enjoyed the luxury of time that solitude gave her to commune with favorite books, to observe the snow-coated countryside in minute detail, to ruminate on well-remembered friends. In time, though, her attention closed in. She became reacquainted with old hurts and old fears, losses and regrets, and she came to understand why some people flee the thought of time alone.

As the preoccupations and distractions of her busy life back in New York City fled, she came to have an awareness of what she called the “universal solitude” that each of us eventually experiences: that existential awareness of myself that only I can know and that ultimately separates me from the rest of the world.

Her first response to this awareness, she said, especially in the waning hours of the night, was a wistful kind of loneliness. But she would awake in the morning with a different sensation, a feeling of new confidence in herself. We go about our lives feeling as if they are shaped and determined by forces outside of ourselves, but, she said, “there may be a time, such as now, when the search for the inward being cuts it away from determination by others, frees it for the moment from the direction from the outside, gives it stasis, and more than temporary peace.”

She found her time alone helped clarify what was important in her life, especially giving her new appreciation for friends and others she most cared for. The retreat to solitude that may appear as a rejection of others, she said, “is not those things at all but instead a breeding ground for greater friendship, a culture for deeper involvement with them.”

Delving into the dark, the shadows of night as well as the shadows of our lives, can, as Thoreau suggested, raise troubling questions – what – how – when – where? But at morning, “there is dawning Nature, in whom all creatures live, looking in at my broad windows with serene and satisfied face, and no question on her lips.”

The dawning of winter solstice morning, the Sun’s birthday, invites us to lay those vexing questions aside. “The snow lying deep on the earth dotted with young pines,” Thoreau wrote, “and the very slope of the hill on which my house is placed, seemed to say, Forward!”

The identity we discover in solitude, in silence, need not lead us to separation, need not distance us from others. As Parker Palmer points out, “solitude does not necessarily mean living apart from others; rather it means never living apart from one’s self.” It is clarity that solitude gives us, clarity about who we are and what truly matters. Appreciating ourselves, who we truly are, not only helps us become more settled in ourselves, it also, makes us more available for relationship. It prepares us to engage with others in community.

Whatever we learn in our solitude, we ultimately bring back to the rest of our lives. It is in community that we are completed, where our many solitudes come together in purpose and hope. We go about our days shuttling between these two: our inner and outer lives.

As Palmer puts it, “We have much to learn from within, but it is easy to get lost in the labyrinth of the inner life. We have much to learn from others, but it is easy to get lost in the confusion of the crowd. So, we need solitude and community simultaneously: what we learn in one mode can check and balance what we learn in the other. Together, they make us whole, like breathing in and breathing out.”

So, for a time, let there be silence for you: a renewing silence that enables you to drop down your burdens and bring yourself in tune with a world alive with possibility. And in the thickets of solitude may you meet a wild, winged creature: furtive, yet majestic, resilient and resourceful, a creature both alien and familiar who might teach you of a kindred spirit: a truth, a center, a holiness within.

And then, return to us. Awake with the newborn Sun and bring your purpose, your wisdom, your insight to the living that remains before us. Shed your doubts and join us in the present moment, where the world’s work is to be done, where beauty abounds and where hope is strong. Let the dark of winter teach you the peace of quiet and the renewal of solitude and help you awaken to wonder and joy.

So be it.