Silence reveals the supernatural reality

'You begin to hear things that only silence can reveal to you'. Photo from Jamberoo Abbey

To live in a way that rejoices in silence rather than in noise is to live a life that is countercultural and radical, as my previous post demonstrates in making introductory remarks on the profundity of silence. 

So, that people are prepared to give up what is normal in all human cultures - a job, a family, and the ability to determine the details of their life - and commit to a life of near silence in a community that has as its centre deep communication with the one who is love, is firm evidence of the reality of the non-material world. 

Monks and contemplatives are not crazy. They tell us that the impact that the trained use of silence has on a person is profound. For good reason, silence remains part of the young set's practice of yoga and meditation.   

But this is where Christian monasticism is so different from that practised by Buddhists; its in its understanding that God is among us and is inviting us to develop an intimate relationship.

Monastic communities such as the Carthusians, Trappists, Carmelites and Benedictines, along with the Orthodox monastics, have existed for hundreds of years, with Anthony of Egypt offering his monastic rule to his desert companions, both men and women, before he died in 356. 

"Silence is not just an absence of noise," says Sister Hilda Scott, the abbess of 24 Benedictine nuns at Jamberoo Abbey in rural New South Wales, Australia. She continues:

You begin to hear things that only silence can reveal to you. You begin to hear the movement of your own heart. You begin to hear your own motivations.

Scott, who has lived there for 30 years, says:

[Silence is] an extremely significant part of our life.... Indeed, our life wouldn't be possible without it. It's essential to our way of living.

She then highlights how silence rids a person of their blinkers, the mindset they are often unaware of but which controls their view of themselves and others, in fact, reality itself. She says: "Silence removes the filters that we put on life." 

There is a clearing of the mind - new thoughts emerge, and old ones become clearer.

Building on that, the community's silence is closely connected with prayer and with a continual communication with something that is "deep".

Their life of prayer is "not about us personally" but "for the rest of the world, too". It's a sacrificial offering of themselves in order to serve the whole world:

On our mountain at Jamberoo, there we are trying to live a deeper life. We believe while we’re trying to do that, then something's being breathed into the world that hopefully makes a difference.

In an environment that fosters silence, it has been said, it's easier to "benefit from striving for a connection to something bigger than one's self".  

Therefore, organise a quiet time of prayer, a small moment every day in which to experience silence. Scott advises:

For five minutes, every day, just five minutes, give yourself a time when there isn't any noise. Don't turn the radio on the minute you get into the car. Go and stand in your backyard, and listen to everything that's going on around you.

You begin to crave more and more. And you begin to crave the clarity of life that comes with it.

Those Christians whose heritage starts with Christ and not in the 1500s have great respect for those who are prepared to enter a community that praises God as its 'work", because that has proved to be the source of God's bounty to the Church and to the world.

Benedict, who inspired others to join him in what became known as the Benedictine order, was shocked by the poor moral and living conditions of the people in the decades after the sacking of Rome (in 410). His monasteries gave strength to the still struggling Christians and kept learning alive, teaching all sorts to read, to plant crops, and to build structures that would last for centuries.

Abbess Hilda Scott and her 23 companions are there to serve today's needs. Her comunity members bind themselves through the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience to providing care and cabins for people to come for quiet, to pray and for counseling. 

The radical nature of their undertaking and their profound insight into the concrete reality of the supernatural (yes, a contradiction but true) is shown by the fact that the community's life most clearly espouses Marx's dictum: To each according to their need, from each according to their ability. The members are not consumerist borgs, nor emotive, personal brand promoting individualists, but servant followers of the God who is love.

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