By Steven Norris
“Music is made in the silences between the notes.” I first heard that phrase from one of my professors at the University of Southern Mississippi. It did not originate with him. In fact, I’ve seen it attributed to both Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Claude Debussy. Without silence, the notes all blur together and become unintelligible.
Recently, I have been engaging in the practice of centering prayer as part of my own contemplative life. When most of us think about prayer, we think about bringing our list of needs to God. We talk to God about those in our lives that are having health issues or relational issues. We may even go so far as to confess things that we have done wrong and praise God for blessings received.
Centering prayer, however, is a receptive method of prayer centered in silence and holy listening. It seeks to move from conversation with God to communion with God. As someone who can be a workaholic, addicted to action and the next project or activity, I have found that I need these moments of silence and stillness to keep me grounded in the Spirit. They remind me that my value and identity are not necessarily related to my productivity — that I am a human being (not a human doing).
I thought about that “groundedness” as comments and images have popped up on my social media and news feeds. As happens to so many of us, I have also felt the impulse to outrage — that electrical signal running along a well-worn path in my brain. It is a critical moment for response. Do we exercise restraint or give in to habitual reaction?
Without intentional effort, we are likely to think: “I don’t want to feel this way alone — I’ll let others know so that we can be angry together. If I don’t say something, my friends are going to think that I endorse this thing.” Our fingers break the silence as words flow from the keyboard.
As a society, we are addicted to outrage. We have normalized it, built up a tolerance to it, such that it does not even phase us anymore. The exaggerated and melodramatic responses once confined to news pundits and social media threads are now spilling over into grocery store lines, parent-teacher conferences, and interactions with neighbors. What do we do?
We would all benefit from instituting a 24 hour pause before giving in to the temptation of impulsive responsiveness. We could all benefit from a few minutes of centering prayer — time to slow down our breakneck pace, stop the incessant speaking, and listen for the “still small voice” of God’s Spirit. Centering prayer gives us time to silence the echo chamber of the world and listen for echoes of heaven resounding on earth.
The Apostle Paul warned the Corinthians, “If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.” I pray that the creative, healing, beautiful, lovely music of God’s people might emerge as our words are framed and nurtured by holy silence that leads us to Christlike love.