Sounds & Silence

In June I had a very small Vacation Bible School for older children.  One afternoon, we took our Bibles down to Lake Leatherwood.  After a short swim, the boys and I sat on the dock.  Nicholas had brought his fishing pole, so we took turns reading aloud from the Bible, while the boys took turns fishing.  I knew this was a good thing when they asked, “Can we do this again?”  And it was so much fun to say, “Yes, in fact, we will do this again tomorrow.”

It was simple, to bring the Bible to a place where children love to be, by the water, fishing in the summer.  It brought Jesus home to us, this Jesus who came right into the daily work of the disciples, who were fishing when he first met them.  As we sat there, reading and reflecting on Scripture, fishing, the park warden was softly singing “Jesus is calling,” as he cleaned the boats.  “When we work well, a Sabbath mood rests on our day and finds it good.”  I felt that line of poetry from Wendell Berry come alive as we worked together in our different responsibilities mysteriously and deeply connected by the Spirit of God.

And you know what – it was the sound and the silence from which it comes that we felt – the Sabbath mood of sound that reveres Silence, the Word that is very near, so near as to be hidden in the heart.  The water lapping, the flies and bees buzzing, the man singing, the Bible read aloud.  Sound, sound that in no way interfered with the silence from which it comes.  Beautiful sound.

When I was a child, I was bathed in a world of sound: some of it healing, some harmful, some beautiful, some ugly.  There was this sound (Froggy went a courting) the first lullaby, my mother sang to me from before I could speak – probably she started singing it while I was in the womb.  And this sound (When The Red, Red Robin) my dad used to sing.  There was a lot of music in the house, my dad, in particular loves music and is never without it, either playing on the stereo or singing through his throat.  (Some more sounds – My Boy Bill, 76 Trombones, My Way).

There were other sounds too … (sounds of car horns, brakes screeching, people talking tenderly, people arguing, phones ringing, radio songs, I wanna hold your hand.)

And there were sounds in church.  My parents were looking for a place to call home spiritually, and we visited churches, all sorts of very protestant churches without much music and with lots of talk.  One time when I was about two and a half, I started my own song in church, my favorite little song at the time (Twinkle, twinkle little star), and then I heard, shhhhhh!  But I kept singing.  It got louder, SHHHHHH!  I kept singing.  And then the terrible sound with a sting (SLAP!) and I got pulled out hard by one arm for a spanking.  That was in a Congregationalist Church, when my aunt Carolyn was married to my uncle Steve.

When I was four years old, my parents found a church they decided to call home.  It was all about the sound for my father, and the fact that there was communion for my mother, who was a Lutheran.  The sound in this place was different than anyplace else.  Other churches sounded more like the rest of the world, but this place had a sound all its own.

(Silence, the Venite, the Magnificat, the Tallis canon, the Sursum Corda.)

From the time I was four and onwards, that sound that sprang forth from an all-pervading Silence fascinated me. The chants were often in my humming and singing, and I was always caught humming and singing in class, often caught unawares as suddenly the teacher would call my name and I’d look and see everyone staring and laughing. And there I was humming or singing my little heart out, unawares that it had caused disruption.

After school, I’d go to children’s choir practice at the Church of the Holy Spirit.  We learned the canticles and the various tones for chanting the psalms.  On Sunday mornings, we were all dressed in our choir robes at the early service of Morning Prayer, and we lead the congregation in singing the service.

At the age of ten, I was fascinated by the discovery that there were lots of churches, and lots of religions in the world.  I met some Mormons, and started learning about their religion.  Then I went to the library and starting taking out books on any religion I could find.  The Quakers and the Zen Buddhists really interested me, with the emphasis on Silence.  My long-suffering mother even took me to a Quaker meeting in town, dropped me off one Sunday on her way to church, when I decided that I must be a Quaker.  I missed the sound of church, much as I loved the Silence.

In college I was to repeat this same journey.  I spent a year attending Friends’ Meetings on Sundays and then I found that the Sursum Corda kept sounding in my heart.  So I set out to find an Episcopal Church and I found several.  I’d go to Church of the Advent on Sunday mornings – what a sound!!!!  I also ran their Monday night soup kitchen for awhile – quite a cheerful sound there, the sound of service.  And I’d visit the Episcopal college chaplaincy on Sunday evenings, where we chanted Taizè chants, and even took part in a big Taizè gathering in downtown Boston in 1982.  Thousands of people chanting together, what a sound!  I’d go to the monastery down by the river, St. John’s, on Tuesday evenings when they had evensong open to non-monks.  I bathed myself in the sound of church, I couldn’t get enough.  And it was weird, because I did not know one single other person at college who attended church at all.

Like the lawyer in today’s Gospel, I tried to make religion an intellectual matter, but the truth is, it was the sound, and still is.  Jesus responds to the lawyer’s question by reminding him of the Shema, which means Hear, or Listen.  The sound of the Shema is the sound of love and truth. Its words are simple and clear.  As Deuteronomy says, it is very near, this word, it is in your heart and in your mouth. It is not a matter for hairsplitting intellectual arguments and dazzling hide-and-seek self-justifications.  The sound penetrates much deeper than mere words.  I think this sound approaches more of the meaning that we seek when we speak not of words but of “the Word.”  I don’t know.  I just know it conveys more to me than words, and words can be quite powerful.  The Word, when it sounds, speaks of the great Silence from which all sound comes and to which all sound returns.

So what I want to give is what I receive – the sound that conveys grace somehow, the sound that conveys higher truth, and mercy and love.  This is what I have received and what I long to give. It does not in any way come from me. Grace comes from God, and is always received as a gift.  So I have to keep my ears open, and especially the inner ear of the heart, and listen, listen deeply.  The world is full of sounds, most of them are very far from the sublime and subtle sound of grace, very far from the resounding truth of the Word.  Most of the sounds that surround us are not at all reverent or uplifting, some of them are quite harmful.  I must be very careful with what sounds I am taking in and what sounds I am then repeating, because we tend to repeat what we hear, whether it is helpful or harmful, true or false.  I don’t want to take into my heart this nonsensical chatter that surrounds us all and far too often fills our thoughts.  I want to be careful and aware of what sounds I am uttering, what tones I am sounding.  Let them be uplifting, let them be true, let them be reverent, and let them always bow before the great Silence of the Unfathomable God, which is where they come from and to which they return.

Edie Bird
15 July 2007

Return to St.  James' Home Page                                                                                                                                                07.07