Silence, Stillness, Starlight
Preacher: Reverend Andrea Abbott
Silence, Stillness, Starlight
A while ago I read an article about a monastic community which was begun in 1230 in a remote corner of Scotland. The monks feared that feared a new highway would be built close to their monastery, a road that would shatter the peace and tranquility of the community. The abbey provides room for up to ten visitors as well as the monks and the steward of the community, Brother Michael, described the peace to be found at Pluscarden Abbey as “one of the abbey’s most prized assets”. It’s interesting to think of peace, of silence, as an asset like money in the bank or real estate but in this noisy world it is, like all rare things, to be prized. It has been quite some time now since we noticed that noise is not always a good thing. We have known for awhile that decibel levels can be harmful to hearing and we have set limits on those but we have also begun to speak about the effect of constant noise on our health. The brave and fit who climb mountains are seeking the silence of the remotest areas and those areas are becoming, therefore, no longer the sanctuaries they once were. And for those of us who no longer run lightly up a few thousand feet, and for those who never could, where are we able to go when the clatter and bangs of the world are too much with us? There are fewer and fewer places in which the sounds of cell phones and the resulting conversations, the canned music, the incessant public directions and announcements do not penetrate the skull. By the time I’ve gone through the line at Wegman’s or Tops I’ve had as much noise as I probably did in a week or so forty years ago.
It is no coincidence that I am writing this sermon at about the time of the fall equinox. This is the time when the days and nights become relatively equal, a time of balance between the hours of dark and light. This happens twice a year, spring and fall, but it has a different feel for spring than it does now. At the spring equinox, the daylight hours grow longer and the hours of night lessen. In the fall, the daylight hours grow shorter and the hours of night lengthen. It has a very different effect and one we do not usually welcome. In this part of the world, we feel the darkness closing in and we know what will follow.
Darkness has a lot of negative connotations for us. It is used to describe evil, it is used to describe danger, it is used for mourning. Those connotations have been used to justify racism by Caucasians against those of darker skin. Those ideas about darkness are embedded in our history, our literature, our culture. Think about the ways we describe darkness and light. Waging a war on the darkness of ignorance. Illuminating our understanding. Casting light on the problem. I’m sure you can think of many other phrases and I’m sure I’ve used all of them.
When I thought of the roadway to be built near the monastery, I thought not only of the endangered silence but also of the endangered darkness. I thought of the headlights of the cars and trucks, the inevitable call for roadside lighting. We fear darkness and we strive hard to eliminate it.
We have done such a good job of lighting up our world that darkness itself has become as rare as silence. So rare that we are beginning to speak about light pollution as we have spoken of noise pollution, pollution as in contamination of the pure by something that defiles it. Indeed, darkness has become so rare that some people have campaigned to protect it, as they would campaign to protect an endangered animal. There are now dark parks now, where the night can roam freely, even though its habitat has been severely restricted. But outside these protected areas, it is harder and harder to see the night stars. Maps of the world show shrinking areas that are not affected by human light. And, of course, this, like all forms of human activity, affects countless species of birds and animals, many times threatening their survival. It is as necessary to have the dark as it is to have the light in the balance of nature but our 24/7 world, our world of fast and constant movement requires that night is seen as an impediment. Perhaps, like the birds and animals who have also suffered from light pollution, we, too, have a greater need for the hours of darkness than we suspected.
Perhaps we need the hours of darkness for many different reasons. Our view shrinks when we can no longer see the stars, when we can no longer see our place in the universe. Our view shrinks to our planet, to the part of the universe over which we image we have control. When we can no longer see ourselves in relationship to the immensity of the universe, we are denied a certain perspective and a certain sense of awe. It is good and healthy to feel a little lost in the universe, to feel our true position and to feel the immensity and beauty all around us. When we can only see the reflected lights of our own ingenuity, we are denied that gift.
People sleep much less than they used to since it is now possible to burn the candle at both ends without too much cost, except perhaps so subtly that we don’t notice how irritable or nervous we become without the calm blanket of night pulled over us for a long enough time. Perhaps we don’t notice that the body needs pause and rest as much as it needs food and water. As the nature of work has changed to involve a great deal of concentration on details, on taking care of delicate and complex computer operations in all fields, the nature of tiredness has changed as well. We no longer have the release of physical tiredness, the kind of good tiredness that puts us off to sleep immediately. We are often left with our thoughts, our worries, our obsessions far into the night. And so the appeal of medications, legal and illegal, prescribed and self-prescribed, that will block those recurring thoughts, that will put us into a state of unconsciousness, that will relieve us of our own minds.
Even if we know we need nightly sleep, we may be less aware of our need for stillness, for a cessation of activity. We are used to a world of constant motion and of constant variety. It is hard to recall a time in which very little was available to do during any given day. And, as we become acclimated to constant motion, constant novelty and distraction, we also crave it. Times spent quietly and in contemplation starts to feel empty and strange. We look around for something to do, something to see. We watch videos and seek out newscasts. We text and respond to texts. We look things up on Google. We set up our calendars and we make sure those calendars are full. At least I know I often do and I doubt I’m the only one. And we twitch at bit when we’re not doing these things. Shameless plug here, for the meditation series we have been offering. The need to learn to empty our minds, to keep ourselves from the need for constant action, constant motion, was the motivator to involve this church with the Zen Center and to offer the two series on meditation that we have hosted. We need to learn to do nothing, to empty our minds, because we no longer can do this naturally.
Sitting still, lying awake without distraction, these are very hard things to do. We may be overawed by the force of darkness and want to drive it away with light but we are even more dismayed by being in close communication with our own minds and with our own emotions. Think about our notion of punishment. For our young children, time outs are the greatest punishment. To be forced to sit without distraction is almost unbearable for a three year old. Even a few minutes is a huge undertaking. And if we move into the adult world, inmates in this state no longer undergo physical punishment for the infraction of rules. They are put in the ultimate time out, solitary confinement, formerly for long periods of time, for years in many cases. Recently, the courts have mandated that solitary confinement be used sparingly and for short periods of time because it has a deleterious effect on people’s mental health, especially for prisoners with a mental illness. To be alone with our thoughts, to be without distraction, is a severe punishment and I can tell you that men in solitary confinement make as much noise as they can for a while and then sleep, sleep a lot, so that going on the solitary confinement block is like going to some strange subterranean world of silence, broken by random shouts.
And yet these conditions are the same conditions that are sought after by religious orders in Christianity, Buddhism and other religions. The difference, of course, is that the conditions are chosen. But even with that choice, stillness is difficult. It is as much a discipline as extreme weight lifting, or running a marathon. Every tradition has had its mystics and for them the emptying of the mind and the techniques that let that happen is the first step toward seeing beyond the day to day world, the first step toward touching something beyond themselves. Some conceive of that something as exterior and revealed. Others see it as interior and disclosed but in each case, there is an opening to a different way of being, a way that goes beyond the confines of what is considered normal life. Once experienced, it becomes something for which the person longs, a place of home and return and oneness, not the fragmented and distracted life we generally live. However we see that experience, as unification with a Being beyond our mortal selves or as a natural phenomenon of wholeness that is a physiological response created under certain conditions, it is something that has been consistently found by some people who profess a variety of religious outlooks. It seems to be as much a part of the human condition as the ability to sing or to dance or to draw. It also seems to be an experience that is accessible to those who practice to find it, in silence and stillness.
For those of us who do not have that experience, we seem to fear hours alone and still, darkness, silence. Perhaps it’s because it seems to hint at the state of death. Our own fears of mortality rise to the surface and we seek to beat them off by lights and noise and action. Yet, paradoxically, as most of us age, we seem to want less stimulation, to crave moments of peace. When we’re young, at least speaking for myself, we seek out movement, action, lights, music, louder the better, all sorts of distractions and entertainments. But now I find them best in very small doses, as condiments like a dash of mustard rather than as the main meal.
U-U’s are talky people. Actually, most religious traditions contain a fair amount of noise. There are Bible readings and chants and responses and prayers and music wherever you go. A church, a synagogue, a mosque, a temple, all have lots of ways to reach the divine and, except perhaps for Quaker meetings, most of them involve making a noise, joyful or otherwise, unto something. And, even in Quaker meetings, there are those who feel called to speak, and speak, and speak.
But within each tradition, there is also a time for silence, for stillness, for darkness which reveals the stars that shine in the sky and within us. At this time of year we speak of the days drawing in and within each one of us there is also a need to find a way to draw into ourselves. That drawing into ourselves is sometimes considered useless, a void, not productive when there is so much that must be done. It is seen as self-indulgence. But nowhere but in that void, that nothingness, do we find the depths of ourselves; nowhere else do we begin to understand our lives. And so silence and stillness becomes an act of courage in which we discover what is in us. We find a place in which we can stop the endless round of action and reaction. In this world of distraction, silence, stillness, darkness become not self-indulgence but an act of defiance, defiance of the unceasing ways in which we are persuaded to give up deepest selves and give ourselves over to manipulation. In that pause when all the bright lights and noise and motion are stilled, we see what was always before us, just as the stars are always there, only hidden by light. To quote Rumi, again, “In Silence there is eloquence. Stop weaving and see how the pattern improves.”
We do not often give ourselves permission to simply be. And so, today, I am not asking people to respond to this sermon. I will be happy to have people discuss it at with me after church, at coffee hour, in emails and any other form of communication, but after this, I would like us to sit in silence, beginning with the singing bowl to take us into that silence but, after that, to still our minds and simply sit for perhaps a whole minute, not thinking of what to say next, not feeling the pressure to respond, but simply to rest in the silence of our hearts.