The Silence Behind Silence

Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night declares knowledge. There is no speech, nor are there words (Ps 19:2-3).

I am self-serving. Like everyone.

I love silent contemplative prayer. I like quiet spaces where television or music is not playing in the background. I also do not live in a major city, I am called to a single life so I do not have young children incapable of silence in my home, so it is easy to find quiet. I also have noise sensitivity, meaning I become uncomfortable when surrounded by too much noise, and that provides a material incentive to seek out to comfort which silence brings.

I sometimes question my motives.

Although I love silent prayer, I am not as zealous as I could be. I commit to twenty minutes a day. Which is not nothing. But it is not a holy hour either. At some point I might discern God calling me to add more. But should I see the contemplative posture I bring to my reading, writing, walks, and conversations as prayer as well? Or would a holy hour automatically be more devout? Many people have lives where it would be irresponsible or impossible for them to commit much time to silence, and there must be a silence beneath silence, a fruit of contemplation, available to them as well by virtue of pursuing virtue in their own life, so that people able to devote time to silent prayer are not somehow superior.

What are my motivations with silent prayer? I recognize that silent prayer is important for me to pursue. But I want to know what it is in essence so that I do not get bogged down by accidents, like the length of time or specific method. If I have this in mind, hopefully I can be more mindful of my relationship with prayer, and prevent it from becoming a selfish indulgence in comfortable stillness. I am one of those people who feels guilty for everything, and I sense that I am approaching some kind of change to my prayer rhythm, so I want to understand what the substance of this change is.

Silent Contemplation is Not Primarily About Silence Itself

Father Donald Haggerty is an expert on contemplative prayer. In his book Saint John of the Cross he writes “Unless a soul is serious in giving itself away in sacrificial generosity, and decisive in living for others, there can be no grace of contemplation… Contemplation is inseparable from a radical transformation of the soul in its entirety… in prayer and outside of formal prayer.” So, contemplative prayer is like soil we rest in so we can become open to receiving from God the grace of contemplation, and with that grace we transform. We emerge from prayer as something else.

When we enter that soil, it needs to be done with a self-sacrificial attitude, not one of self-hoarding. It seems to me that it’s hard to know if anything is genuinely self-sacrificial, outside of literal sacrifice of life, because our motives are so mixed.

Contemplative prayer is like going into the ground as a seed, and coming out a plant. I think of the grace of contemplation as an alignment with the silent proclamation of God’s grandeur described in Psalm 19. It is inherent in every physical location. It can be intuitively grasped by humans, no matter the specific activity one is performing. I am positive it is possible to sit in silence for long periods of time and call it prayer without being transformed if you are focused more on the act of praying than listening to the verbose quiet of day and night. Likewise, if your schedule is jammed with changing diapers and driving kids to sports practice, or a hectic job, there must be a way to receive the grace of contemplation without literal silence.

If your self is sacrificed, anything can become contemplative. If you hoard your self and cling to perceptions, then nothing is contemplative. But we are designed to give ourselves away and participate in God’s reality with an awareness of His creativity and grandeur, so as far as experience goes, sacrifice might not really feel like sacrifice. It seems like it would feel like fullness, satiety, if we could perceive it properly.

But also, having a good prayer life does not magically protect anyone from depression, anxiety, or non-clinical forms of sadness natural to life.

I guess I am saying, I wish I had a device that would tell me when my spiritual endeavors are sincere and when they are not, because there cannot be a total identification with the felt perception of prayer and its effects, although for many there might be.

Prayer and Leisure

Today in my country, young people, especially men in Catholic spaces, in my experience, can become very enthusiastic about traditional practices. Sometimes more for a perceived glamor associated with tradition than the substance of a practice. Maybe this is true for every generation, or it is a common trend every few decades, I am only aware of my own time and place.

Many of us grew up spending too much time watching television and interacting with friends through video games and social media more than we hung out in person. For our mental and moral health, many are rightly trying to change that in their twenties. It is common knowledge that many parts of the internet are addictive, and that easy interactions with folks online can sap our ability to maintain embodied relationships with friends around us. It is very easy to feel like you are socially engaged when watching television, and real-life people who are less entertaining, less attractive, and more needy become harder to deal with when you feel like your needs are being met more easily elsewhere.

Because of these negative feelings towards modern media and technology, I have noticed that some people romanticize non-digital types of activity and leisure. As a Literature major it is jarring for me to hear normal people in Catholic spaces reference Dostoyevsky as someone they want to read, or are actually reading. There was no such positive, popular association with classical authors like him ten years ago when I was in school.

As an adult, I have heard more offensive comments about being a Literature major than any demographic details I have legal protections for. I received constant comments to the tune of “I wish I could study something interesting like that, but I have to be practical, so I’m studying general Business Administration,” or “I wish I had time read a novel, but I am too busy with other commitments I chose to make,” or “It must be so nice to be a Literature major and laze about on the lawn reading Shakespeare while I am doing things I hate.” I would sometimes try to respond that, in a constantly changing job market there is value in leaning things like communication, critical thinking, and developing the concentration skills that come from reading giant old-timey texts. All of which has proven true, by the way.

But now I oddly hear unrealistic comments in the other direction. There seems to be a glamor around having read Shakespeare, Jane Austen, and especially Dostoyevsky. I agree that reading is good, and better than playing violent video games. As a single person with free time, I think it is important for me to have a strong reading life so that my leisure is edifying and does not lead me to near occasions of sin. However, I am skeptical whenever anyone romanticizes anything. Most people were illiterate for most of history, so it is weird to me to attach a moral significance to reading, even if for many people in affluent nations who have time on their hands, it is a very good habit to form.

I fear that devotional practices can be treated in this same romantic way. Dressing up really nice to go to Mass can be a way of showing reverence, if you only associate formal wear with respect. It can also be vain. I am someone who prefers not dress up to go to Mass, because I associate dressing up with professional situations where I want to manage how others see me. And I am aware that not everyone can afford business casual clothing, and that most clothing I can buy is manufactured unethically in a sweatshop, so I do not see how one can attach moral significance to clothing. For me it feels more authentic and vulnerable to worship God in casual clothing because I do not want anything transactional from Him. I do not associate formal clothing with reverence, and if I dressed up in order to appear more reverent to others, that would be wrong.

Prayer practices can be taken in the same route. Novenas and praying the hours can all be really good and helpful. But they are specific methods of prayer, and not the essence of prayer, or the grace of contemplation, itself. No way of praying is inherently superior to another, even if it is longer and “traditional” according to a particularly Western European notion of tradition.

Prayer is a Haunted House

In The Haunting of Hill House by Shirley Jackson, the narrator Eleanor describes how she experiences being in a haunted house. “I am like a small creature swallowed whole by a monster… and the monster feels my tiny little movements inside.”

This is how fruitful prayer feels to me. In a good way.

I remember being at Eucharistic Adoration once. I had a handful of personal conundrums I wanted clear solutions for from God, and I was frustrated because Jesus was physically in front of me, but was inscrutably silent and not answering what was stressing me out.

Afterwards I walked outside into evening and felt like Eleanor in Hill House. As if I was walking among the bones and organs of a gigantic being and totally visible to whatever I was walking around inside. I saw a tree. I thought that if I touched it the bark would be warm, soft, and pulse like skin. I sped walked away in case I was right.

Inscrutability is the word. There is no way to know for sure whether or not I am totally genuine in prayer. There is no way to know that any specific action I or anyone else takes is the single best option. When I go to God in prayer, I rarely ever get the guidance I am looking for, and the more I pray the more unsettling and undefinable prayer becomes. There is no speech, nor are there words. Prayer is a tangible experience of God’s reality beyond concepts, and it is something I could experience if I were in another life situation with another personality, with any method of prayer, because God is looking for openness and vulnerability not checked boxes.