Prelude Melodia Africana I by Ludovico Einaudi
Opening Words by Stephanie Bisby
Prayer is woven into the fabric of all things, so we gather, not to form a prayer, but to give space for our hearts to offer the prayers which form in us in every moment of our lives: when we are alone, with time for contemplation; when we are together with our loved ones; and when our thoughts find their way to those from whom we are separated by distance or loss.
We gather to acknowledge and make room for the core of silence which breathes beyond our words, and to hear the voice of our hearts, souls or spirits. Let us enter the quiet place now and seek the stillness behind the words, which some name spirit, some name God, and others find too vast for words.
Sound and silence are not enemies, but two halves of the pattern, As the black ink and the white page are meaningless without each other. Half the music lies within the pause between the arches of the heart.
Chalice Lighting (you may wish to light a candle in your own home at this point). words by Paul Stephan Dodenhoff)
For this one hour, Spirit of Life,
we let go.
For this one hour,
may we let go of our anxieties,
our fears,
our anger,
our self-doubts,
our regrets,
our petty grievances,
and our distractions.
If only for this one hour,
let the flame of this chalice
burn them from our hearts and minds
and light our way to peace and serenity.
For this one holy hour.
Opening Prayer by Cliff Reed
In the quietness of this place and the peace of this hour,
may we come close to our deeper selves.
Fantasies and daydreams too often cloud our minds,
and we use our time and energy pursuing empty goals.
In busy-ness we lose our way.
Let us listen to the deep insistent call within us.
May we learn to love our poor fragmented selves
that they may be healed.
And may we turn that love outwards,
that it might heal the wounds which hate and fear have made.
Let us not be deceived about ourselves or about our world,
so that we neither crash in disillusion nor be twisted by cynicism.
If truth and clear vision be granted us, then let us give thanks.
May arrogance never trap us into thinking that truth has but one aspect.
May we stand face to face with ourselves,
recognising that which is truly ours,
and that which is the imposition of others.
And as we do, may we feel the love which unites us all in the depths of our being.
Amen
Reading Sound and Silence by David Dawson, from With Heart and Mind
Do we now live in a noisier world? Is there a greater variety of sounds around us? Are we more or less tolerant of sound? These and other questions are asked when you think about the sounds that surround our daily lives – the soundscape. Some sounds can be very welcome to most people: the natural sound of running water, the wind in the trees, laughter, the voice of a loved one. Even mechanical sounds can be music to the ears of some: the well-tuned motor car, the steam engine.
And it’s not always to do with volume – loud sounds bad, quiet sounds good. It is to do with context – the right sound in the right place is usually fine, but the wrong sound at least irritates, and it might do much worse.
To be practical, there are for me two sounds that distract. Firstly loud music (muzak) in public places – shops, banks, even the doctor’s waiting room; and secondly, loud conversations in public places – nowadays these are often on the mobile phone, when business is conducted as though no one else was around.
So much sound around us. Do we ever now have silence, or something approaching silence, and if we do, are we able to enjoy the beauty of silence, or are we threatened by the absence of sound?
Musicians work with sound and silence, and they are of equal importance. The composer frames sounds with silence; for the performer, it is often the silence between the sounds that has the greatest impact.
Alternative Lord’s Prayer
Spirit of Life and Love, here and everywhere,
May we be aware of your presence in our lives.
May our world be blessed.
May our daily needs be met,
And may our shortcomings be forgiven,
As we forgive those of others.
Give us the strength to resist wrong-doing,
The inspiration and guidance to do right,
And the wisdom to know the difference.
We are your hands in the world; help us to grow.
May we have compassion for all living beings,
And receive whatever life brings,
With courage and trust. Amen
Reading from Silence: A User’s Guide by Maggie Ross
The choice for silence or noise, for carefulness or carelessness, is ours in every moment. To choose silence as the mind’s default in an accelerating consumer culture – a culture that sustains itself by dehumanizing people through the unrelenting pressure of clamour, confusion, and commodification – is indeed a subversive act.
For the reality is that our lives hang in the balance: between speech and silence, action and reflection, distraction and attention, extinction and survival. We bear responsibility for maintaining this balance, just as our choices for or against silence can affect the choices of everyone around us, choices that have both material and psycho-spiritual consequences. We seem to have forgotten this responsibility, for in the present time we are disconnected from the wellspring of silence and stillness that is necessary for human beings to thrive. These living waters no longer animate the speech and activity of our minds and bodies, lost as we are in a wasteland of our own making. If there is to be a viable ecology, if we are to remain human, if our lives are to have any meaning, if we are to continue as a viable species, it is essential that we restore the flow that enables our everyday lives to be informed by the riches found in silence.
Prayer by Anne Mills (adapted)
Spirit of Life and Love,
Gentle whispers hover; lead us into prayer;
Within sweet silence, we feel more aware.
Solace and calm surround our very souls;
Pay heed to the quiet; may we be made whole?
Fears and worries linger; where to find release
From the uncertain; harmony and peace
Will soothe our spirits—-bring tranquillity;
We embrace the stillness of serenity.
Now our hearts are open, and our thoughts fly free;
Leave us to settle where we long to be.
This is our goal, the essence of our quest;
Deepest joy floods through us; doubt is laid to rest.
May it be so, Amen
Reading by Paul H. Beattie
When my mind is still and alone with the beating of my heart, I remember many things too easily forgotten: the purity of early love; the maturity of unselfish love that seeks nothing but another’s good; the idealism that has persisted through all the tempest of life.
When my mind is still and alone with the beating of my heart, I find a quiet assurance, an inner peace, in the core of my being. It can face the doubt, the loneliness, the anxiety — it can accept these harsh realities and can even grow because of these challenges to my essential being.
When my mind is still and alone with the beating of my heart, I can sense my basic humanity, and then I know that all men and women are my brothers and sisters. Nothing but my own fear and distrust can separate me from the love of friends. If I can trust others, accept them, enjoy them, then my life shall surely be richer and more full. If I can accept others, this will help them to be more truly themselves and they will be more able to accept me.
When my mind is still and alone with the beating of my heart, I know how much life has given me: the history of the race, friends and family, the opportunity to work, the chance to build myself. Then wells within me the urge to live more abundantly, with greater trust and joy, with more profound seriousness and earnest striving, and yet more calmly at the heart of life.
Time of Stillness and Reflection (words by Richard S. Gilbert)
In the midst of the whirling day,
In the hectic rush to be doing,
In the frantic pace of life,
Pause here for a moment.
Catch your breath;
Relax your body;
Loosen your grip on life.
Consider that our lives are always unfinished business;
Imagine that the picture of our being is never complete;
Allow your life to be a work in progress.
Do not hurry to mould the masterpiece;
Do not rush to finish the picture;
Do not be impatient to complete the drawing.
From beckoning birth to dawning death we are in process,
And always there is more to be done.
Do not let the incompleteness weigh on your spirit;
Do not despair that imperfection marks your every day;
Do not fear that we are still in the making.
[silence]
Let us instead be grateful that the world is still to be created;
Let us give thanks that we can be more than we are;
Let us celebrate the power of the incomplete;
For life is always unfinished business. Amen
Musical Interlude I due fiumi by Ludovico Einaudi
Address Sound and Silence
If we are blessed with the faculty of hearing, we spend our lives surrounded by either sound or silence. I found David Dawson’s reflection, in our first reading, quite thought-provoking, that, particularly in the last decade, when mobile smartphones have become ubiquitous, there is now “so much sound around us. Do we ever now have silence, or something approaching silence, and if we do, are we able to enjoy the beauty of silence, or are we threatened by the absence of sound?”
Hmm. Because there are sounds we enjoy, such as music, running water, the wind in the trees, as he pointed out, and sounds which invade our ears without our volition, which we find grating, annoying. My pet hate is having to listen to one side of someone’s conversation, when they are talking loudly on a mobile phone, in a situation where I cannot get away (like on a train). It is hard to shut it out… which means that the inner peace that stillness and silence can bring is one of the most difficult things to attain, and even harder to hold on to.
Yet our souls cry out for it. Go into any bookshop and visit the ‘Mind and Spirit’ section. You will find the shelves groaning with titles like The Little Book of Calm or Chicken Soup for the Soul or De-stress your life in 30 days (I made the last one up, but I’m sure that such a title exists). And there are videos and podcasts we can watch and listen to, to teach ourselves meditation or yoga or Pilates to enable us to relax and find some peace in our lives.
As a Unitarian, I believe that there has to be a God-element or spiritual element as well. I believe that one of the most powerful parts of our worship services are the hymns – that combination of words and music can get a message across far more deeply than the spoken word. And they are memorable and speak to our senses – some make us joyful, some make us sad, some make us think, some uplift us. A clever worship leader will choose their hymns with care.
Back on the silence side of the equation, Martin Luther King Jnr once said, “Peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal.” In other words, if we do not have inner peace, we will not be able to achieve lasting outer peace. Many wise ones, from widely different eras, say the same. Many centuries ago, Lao Tse recognised that for there to be peace in the world, there must first be peace in the heart. And the oft-quoted opening lines of 20th century poet Max Ehrmann’s Desiderata also urge this course of action: “Go placidly amid the noise and haste, and remember what peace there may be in silence.”
As usual, the Quakers have got it spot on: number 3 of their Advices and Queries asks us, “Do you try to set aside times of quiet for openness to the Holy Spirit? All of us need to find a way into silence which allows us to deepen our awareness of the divine and to find the inward source of our strength. Seek to know an inward stillness, even amid the activities of daily life. Do you encourage in yourself and in others a habit of dependence on God’s guidance for each day? Hold yourself and others in the Light, knowing that all are cherished by God.”
Inner peace is so important. We’re not supposed to live our lives at top speed. Every person needs to have some time to centre down, to be at peace, to recharge their emotional and spiritual batteries. Being a person of faith has taught me the truth of this. We need to consciously make the effort to schedule some time to step off the treadmill and treat ourselves to some gentle silence. This time of stillness and reflection need not be long, even ten minutes can be enough, although most would recommend twenty.
What we do in this time of stillness and reflection will depend on the individual. We might choose to meditate or pray or simply go for a walk with no fixed destination in mind. There is no right or wrong way to do this. The ideal for me is to follow the Quaker advice and “find a way into the silence which allows us to deepen our awareness of the divine and to find the inward source of our strength”, although I find it very hard to stop my mind buzzing round and around, flitting from concern to concern. But if I do manage it, (which doesn’t happen every day) it really helps. And I know that the days when I skip this practice, I am not as balanced, more easily stressed out.
I have a meditation app on my phone, called Headspace. It is run by an ex-Buddhist monk called Andy Puddicombe and it has taught me a lot about how to meditate. One of the concepts he mentions is the “Blue Sky”, which is also a metaphor used by Martin Laird in his wonderful book, Into the Silent Land. Laird writes that our thoughts and feelings are like the weather, but that there is something deeper within, which is not affected by changes in that weather, that is deep, and luminous, and aware. Laird refers to it as a mountain, Mount Zion. Which is “that of God” deep within each of us.
This was illustrated memorably for me one day when I was driving home from Evesham. Most of the sky was covered with thick black rainclouds, but there was a gap between them, through which a patch of clear blue sky could be seen. Seeing that bright blue sky behind those menacing clouds helped me to understand that although our thoughts, moods and feelings may change from day to day, or even from moment to moment, there is a deep, peaceful sky-blue awareness behind and above them, into which we can sink, if we just have the patience to sit in silence for a while and let our passing emotions do just that – pass by. It is not easy by any means – the chattering monkeys will come through loud and clear, the inner video is always there, ready to seduce our attention away. But fleeting moments of peace are possible, and the knowledge that this deeper, calmer centre is there within us, accessible through silence, may help us in our everyday lives. It surely helps me.
One way of encouraging our awareness of the possibility of inner peace is simple yet profound – mindful breathing. Paying attention to the miracle that is our breath, that keeps us alive from moment to moment without our being aware of it. I was looking through some old Inquirers the other day and found a fascinating article by Peter Hawkins, which was talking about borders, which he referred to as “the spaces between places, between roles and between times.” His argument was that we all need a breathing space between activities so that we can finish off one thing properly before starting on the next. He recommended instituting a brief “spiritual practice”, which he defined as “a ritual to fully finish one event and empty myself before I cross the boundary into the next event.” This could be something as simple as taking a couple of deep breaths while focussing on your breathing. I thought that this was a really interesting idea. Breathing space.
The practices of mindful breathing and silence, and listening to sounds which soothe us can help us to see things from a balanced perspective. When we are rushing around all day it can be difficult to see things as they really are – if we are sufficiently stressed out, everything that happens can be viewed as yet another source of irritation, from the phone ringing to the postman knocking. This is not only unfair on the rest of the world, it is also unfair on us.
I know it can be tempting to wind ourselves tighter and tighter in an effort to stay on top of things, but that way lies madness. Nothing or nobody is supposed to be under tension the whole time, and eventually something will snap, which could have been avoided by taking a little time out and seeing things clearly. Once again this is easier said than done, but we can always ask for help – from God or from other people.
Anyone (everyone) can only do their best in all the ways they can, then commend the result to God. Again it’s about finding a sense of perspective – realising that each of us is only one person and that the world is wide. I don’t mean that we should not strive to do our very best, just that having done that we should be satisfied and at peace.
I will finish by repeating Stephanie Bisby’s beautiful words, which opened our service: “Sound and silence are not enemies, but two halves of the pattern, As the black ink and the white page are meaningless without each other. Half the music lies within the pause between the arches of the heart.”
May we all find our own inner peace in the harmonies of sounds and breathing and silence. Amen
Closing Words
Spirit of Life and Love,
Our time together is drawing to a close.
May we find a sustaining balance
between harmonious sounds, and peace-filled silence.
May we share the love we feel,
may we look out for each other,
and may we keep up our hearts,
being grateful for the many blessings in our lives,
now and in the days to come, Amen
Postlude Melodia Africana II by Ludovico Einaudi