THE SOUND OF SILENCE

"Ultimate peace is silent through the density of life,"

-C. S. Lewis

 Two hands clap and there is a sound. What is the sound of one hand clapping? The “sound of silence” comes to mind—one answer to this ancient koan.

Silence, I've come to believe, is the answer to many of life's contradictions. I'm learning to say less these days. It was Jesus' way. In the face of severe provocation he was "silent (peacefully calm) and did not reply" (Mark 14:61). Jesus could have answered his critics, but, "like a sheep before its shearers is silent, He did not open his mouth.”

There is awesome power in silence, especially in those overwhelmingly bad situations in which we are subject to harsh words from those we greatly love. There, silence is most difficult for loved ones have the greatest power to wound us. But, there it is most essential, for we owe our own homes the greatest measure of gentleness and forbearance.

Silence forestalls angry reactions and bitter words that we may later regret and others may not forget. Silence gives us time to slow our thoughts and reorder them, perhaps to remind ourselves that the one who wounded us is weary, or worried and otherwise out of sorts. Or, we may quickly forgive for they may not know what they're doing. We should always forgive anything the moment there is anything to forgive for there is no better time.

Silence is a means by which we may help others see themselves, for their voices reverberate in the quietness we offer, and in it they may hear their unkind words and regret them. When we step aside and wait in stillness, we give God an opportunity to work through us. When we take up our own cause we may frustrate his ultimate intention to use us to bring spiritual healing and health to others.

Silence can be the gentle answer that turns away anger. Defensive reactions make things worse: they "stir up wrath"(Proverbs 15:1). Restraint and silence relieve tension and restore peace. When we thus "make peace," we "sow a seed whose fruit is righteousness"(James 3:18). Others begin to grow toward goodness through our example.

Finally, calm, unruffled silence is an eloquent and gracious reflection of God's unconditional love. Clement, a first century Christian, wrote, "Let (those who belong to Christ) demonstrate by silence the gentleness of their tongue; (thus) let them show His love" (1 Clement 21:7).

And so we pray for a silence that, "swallows up the waves of wrong and never throws them back to swell the commotion of the angry sea from whence they came" (George MacDonald).

Ah, for the grace to annihilate wrong in this way.

DHR

Peacocks and Their Kin

“…God plays a game with the soul called ”the loser wins“; a game in which the one who holds the poorest cards does best.” —Evelyn Underhill

Male peacocks are resplendent creatures with iridescent blue-green plumage and elongated trains tipped with "eyes" colored in hues of gold, red, and blue. They are strikingly beautiful birds…

But they have the ugliest feet in the world!

To be honest, most of us have “ugly feet,” don’t we—some blemish, some disfigurement, some physical limitation or handicap, something that makes us feel “less than”? It may be a deformity we’ve borne all our lives, or it may be the disfigurements of old age—wrinkles, blotches, sun–spots, shriveled limbs—unsightliness that makes us self-conscious and reticent.

Paul described his deficiency (whatever it was) as a “thorn in the flesh” a defect that shamed and humiliated him (2 Corinthians 12:7-9). Three times he asked the Lord to remove it, thinking that he could then serve God better. But the Lord assured him: “My grace is sufficient for you, for my strength is made perfect in weakness.” Paul replied with great humility, “So then, most gladly I will boast in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”

We may be too lovely for God to use, but we can never be too ugly. One of the ironies of faith is that he often chooses those who are less endowed with natural grace and beauty to accomplish his most important tasks. They are used in ways they could never imagine. Here is mystery: We are chosen because of our limitations, not in spite of them. How encouraging is that! “God was looking for someone weak enough to use and he found (you)” (Hudson Taylor).

So…whatever measure of “ugliness” we enjoy, it is ours lest we get carried away with ourselves, and fail to make the most of our lives. It is a blessing to make us better, stronger, wiser for it is “out of weakness” that we are “made strong” (Hebrews 11:34).

DHR

Better Things Ahead

“There are better things ahead than any we leave behind”  -

—C.S. Lewis

John was my best friend, an enthusiastic dispenser of goodness and kindness, a fountain of perpetual joy. I called him Jolly John.

I thought that John and I would be friends forever…  But he died.

Augustine wrote in his Confessions of a friend much like John who was “half of his soul.” When his friend unexpectedly died, Augustine was inconsolable, for he too thought his friendship would last forever. He had loved “one that must die, as if he would never die,” he wrote. This Augustine called, “loving a man as a (mere) man.”

Augustine’s friend became a follower of Jesus on his deathbed and Augustine followed him into faith soon after. Then he wrote in his Confessions, “He was not yet my friend (before our conversion) as afterwards…for true (friendship) it cannot be, unless You join us together…by that love which is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost, which is given unto us… Blessed is he who loves You and his friend in You… For he alone loses none who are dear to (You), for those who are dear (to You) cannot be lost.”

John is not lost to me, for I will see him again quite soon—younger, better, stronger, wiser and more joyous than ever before. And we will be friends forever.

How do I know? In the risen Christ I see the end for which I was made and the confidence to believe it. These “few atoms, blown to dust,” will form again in a better life, in which there is no parting. Dividing death will have been defeated. I will be joined forever and ever with John and all my other loved ones who are waiting for me there.

George MacDonald wrote, “The Lord gives and the Lord takes away, but the Lord will give back again better than ever before.” We’re all getting closer to that great day!

DHR

Fathers and Sons

 “I just wish I could have told him in the living years.”

—Mike and the Mechanics

My father was a good father, and, in most respects, I was a dutiful son. But I allowed my father to starve for the one thing I could have given him: myself. He was a quiet man; I was equally silent. We often worked for hours side by side and scarcely a word passed between us. He never asked; I never told him my deepest desires and dreams, my hopes and fears.

In time I woke up to my reticence. Perhaps the perception came when my first-born came into the world, or when, one by one, my sons went out into the world. Now I wish I had been more of a son to my father while I was under his roof. I think of all the things I could have told him. And all the things he could have told me. At his funeral I stood beside his casket for the last time, struggling to understand my emotions. “It’s too late, isn’t it?” Carolyn said quietly. Exactly.

My comfort lies in the fact that I’ll be able to make things up in heaven, for is that not where every relationship will be set right? George MacDonald thought so: “What a disintegrated mass were the world, what a lump of half-baked brick, if death were indeed the end of affection! if there were no chance more of setting right what was so wrong in the loveliest relations! How gladly would many a son who once thought it a weariness to serve his parents, minister now to their lightest need! and in the boundless eternity is there no help?” (Home Again: A Tale).

Death is not the end of affection, but the beginning of timeless existence in which there will be no more secrets and love will grow forever. Then, the hearts of sons will be turned to their fathers and the hearts of fathers to their sons. Then, we’ll pay attention to the things that matter most.

DHR

Three Questions

Leo Tolstoy tells a story about a king who believed that he would never fail at any enterprise if he had the answer to three questions: (1) What is the right time for any action? (2) Who are the people that matter? And, (3) in each situation, what is the most important thing to do?

None of the wise men of his kingdom could answer the king’s questions, so he disguised himself as a peasant and went out among his people to find the answers.

In his quest, he came across an old hermit who was digging in his garden. The King approached him and said: “I have come to you, wise hermit, to ask you to answer three questions: “What is the right time for any action? Who are the people that matter? And, in each situation, what is the most important thing to do?”

The hermit listened to the King, but answered nothing. He just spat on his hand and recommenced digging.

"You must be tired," said the King, "let me take the spade and work awhile for you."

While he was at work a man appeared who had been grievously wounded. The king bandaged his wounds only to discover that the man was an assassin sent to kill him, but, while the king was helping the hermit, the king’s men had discovered the plot and had wounded him. The would-be assassination asked the king for forgiveness which he freely granted.

Later, the king asked the hermit once again the answer to his questions

The hermit answered, “When that man ran to us, the most important time was when you were attending to him, for if you had not bound up his wounds he would have died without having made peace with you. So he was the most important man, and what you did for him was your most important business.

There you have it: What is the right time for any action? Now! This minute! Neither the past nor the future have any real existence; the present is the only time we have the power to act. Who is the person that matters? The one in front of us, for every person we meet in this world, if we only knew it, is fraught with deep and desperate need. And what is the most important action? To love that person by being good to him, “because for that purpose alone was man sent into this life!” (Tolstoy).

What a marvelous simplification! — reminiscent of the conversation Jesus had with the lawyer about loving one’s neighbor and the young man’s self–justifying question, “And who is my neighbor?” In reply, our Lord told the story of the Good Samaritan, the point of which is:  The very next person you meet (Luke 10:27-29).

DHR

Cross My Heart and Hope to Die

Since Christ embrac’d the Crosse it selfe, dare I
His image, th’image of his Crosse deny?

—John Donne

John  Donne was thinking of the Puritans of his day and their refusal to “sign” the cross. But, he argues, we can not avoid the sign of the Cross; we see it everywhere:

    Swim, and at every stroke, thou art a Cross;
    The Mast and yard make one, where seas do toss;
    Look down, thou spiest out Crosses in small things;
    Look up thou seest birds rais’d on crossed wings;
    All the Globes frame, and spheres, is nothing else
    But the Meridians crossing Parallels…

All these “crucifixes” remind us of the Cross, but more notably,

    When that Crosse ungrudg’d, unto you sticks,
    Then are you to your self, a Crucifix.

In other words, we ourselves may become a “sign” of our Lord’s Cross that others will see!

Paul  says much the same: “(We are) always carrying about in the body the dying of the Lord Jesus, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our body. For we who live are always delivered to death for Jesus’ sake, that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh.  So then death is working in us, but life in you” (2 Corinthians 4:10-12).

Daily, we’re “delivered over to death.”  I think of the parameters of old age: forgetfulness, failing eyesight, flaccid muscles, aching joints, impaired hearing, an unsteady gait and other strictures. These are the “little deaths” that accumulate until death is done with us. Despite the plethora of pills and potions we use to stave off the process as long as possible our “mortal flesh” is dying  and there’s nothing we can do about it!

But we can do  something about our attitude. We can embrace our dying—accept it “ungrudg’d” as Donne put it. This is what Paul means when he says, we “are always carrying in the body the dying of Jesus,” i.e., we have adopted the attitude that characterized Jesus. Our Lord accepted each diminishment in his life as His Father’s will and died to His own inclinations. That’s what it meant to him to take up his cross daily. The Cross on which he eventually died was merely the culmination of that  attitude.

Put simply, “carrying in the body the dying  of Jesus,” is offering up each “little death” to God as Jesus did and praying with Him, “Not my will but yours be done.” In that spirit we ourselves become a Crucifix.

Bitterness and resentment  over the aging process produce an unpleasantness that characterizes some folks in their final years. But a cheerful acceptance of each “little death” as it overtakes us releases the life of God within us and  a surfeit of goodness—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity,  faithfulness, gentleness, and self-restraint. This is the life of Jesus  “made visible in our mortal flesh,” a life so irresistible that others are fascinated and drawn toward the One who is life indeed. Thus Paul’s ironic equation: “As death works in us, life works in you.”

May we then,

    Be covetous of Crosses, let none fall.
    Crosse no man else, but crosse thy selfe in all.”

DHR

A Long, Long Trail A–Winding

“When my spirit was overwhelmed within me, You knew my path (Psalm 142:3).

Sometimes the path seems impossibly steep and lengthy. I have no strength, no will for the journey. Then I remember that God knew this path long before I was called to walk it. He has always known the difficulties I will experience, the pain that I could never explain to another. He knows and offers his presence.

Perhaps you’re overwhelmed with sadness today. It may be the weight of a difficult ministry; the worry of a hard marriage; the sorrow of a struggling child; the care of an aging parent; the troubles that accompany your own aging. Surely, you say, God would not have me walk this way. There must be another, easier path for me to travel.

But are any of us wise enough to know that some other way would be better, some other lot more likely to make us into better and wiser children? No, our Father in heaven knows the best path, out of all possible paths, to bring us to completion.

His ways are higher than our ways; his thoughts higher than our thoughts. We cannot teach Him wisdom, or increase his fondness for us. We can but humbly bear his will and take the path he has marked out for us today, and do so in absolute trust in his infinite wisdom and love. (He is wiser and more loving than we can ever know.) He who sees, has foreseen and has not led

 us astray. 

DHR