The gifts of silence

The Rev Dr Richard Frazer extols the spiritual benefits of sitting in silence

“WILL you lot shut up. I can’t see the ball for all the noise you are making!”

That was the appeal of our coach in the early days of my school rugby career. Wee lads, rollicking and shouting at each other in an unwieldy melee. Great fun but total chaos. Sometimes, I have wondered if we talk too much in church and do not know quite what to do when silence descends. Silence can make us uncomfortable and we tend to fill it with words, but maybe silence has gifts to bestow.

A few years ago, we explored a ‘fresh expression’ of church called ‘NiteKirk’. It was a sort of ‘drop-in’ church with art and music and opportunities to spend time in silence. It was all about trying to meet people on the edge of faith for whom attendance at a Sunday service was difficult.

My Dad came along one evening and I could tell he was a bit wary. We had asked a young, talented cellist to play music at the start. I sat beside my Dad and I could see him shifting uneasily and looking at his watch. Suddenly, ten minutes into some beautiful music, he turned to me with a rather anxious look and said, “So, when does it begin?”

My Dad had been ordained as an elder in 1950. As a chartered accountant, he was a kirk treasurer in at least three separate congregations over a period of 50 years. He was my Sunday School and Bible Class teacher, our Group Scout Leader for a while and a thoroughly decent and devoted churchman, but he always struggled when there were no words.

An invitation to sit in silence with your thoughts, waiting on the Spirit to emerge from deep within and speak to us was not his ‘thing’. His deep faith emerged in the Church of Scotland through words, propositions, readings of scripture and spoken prayers. It is a noble tradition, but I think of the word ‘education’ and realise that, at its best, it is not just about putting information into us, but allowing things to emerge; so it is with the life of the Spirit.

The journey into silence is not something for which Presbyterians are famed, but over the years, I have found silence to be a cherished aspect of my faith journey. A few years ago, a friend challenged me to spend just ten minutes in complete silence and I realised I had scarcely ever done it. As I worked on that discipline, whole realms of insight and illumination came to me. At first, I found it uncomfortable. Being still felt like laziness to a mind schooled in the Protestant work ethic.

I have often said to people that, as a busy minister, I suffer from what I jokingly call ‘demented activism’, an admission that I often long to please people and have people think well of me by my activism. Was that virtue or wanting to give a good impression?

In his novel The Dubliners, James Joyce wrote ‘Mr Duffy lived a short distance from his body’. I begin to understand what that means when you discover that silence and communion go together. The inward quiet of a soul that has ceased to be restless is often an indication of the light within. Meister Eckhart wrote that ‘the friend of silence is the friend of God’ and I am beginning to discover the truth of that. Maybe our rugby coach had a point. Sometimes we cannot see for all our words, so try spending ten minutes in silence and see what emerges.

“ Silence can make us uncomfortable and we tend to fill it with words, but maybe silence has gifts to bestow.

Refugio is a service we offer in Greyfriars Kirk, Edinburgh at 7pm on the third Sunday of each month, where we take the Journey into Silence.

The Rev Dr Richard Frazer is minister at Edinburgh: Greyfriars.