the Sound of Silence
Hello darkness, my old friend
I've come to talk with you again
Because a vision softly creeping
Left its seeds while I was sleeping
And the vision that was planted in my brain
still remains
Within the sound - - of silence
Whether sung by Simon & Garfunkel or by “Disturbed”, nothing else comes so forcefully to mind as I read and hear Elijah the prophet with his Lord present not in the wind, not in the earthquake, not in the fire, but in the sound of silence.
Only once in my life has that, God’s silence, been broken into. A story I’ve told before, always reluctantly because, to be honest, it puts my sanity on the line, in public view.
I used to read bedtime stories to my Kristen when she was very small. including Bible stories that my mother had read to me when I was a little boy. And after the story we’d have a moment for questions Kristen might have. The night I have in mind, after a story of Adam and Eve, or maybe it was Abraham and Sarah, she asked, “Papa, why doesn’t God talk to people any more?” And that’s a hard one to answer a child of four or five or six or seven, who’s not yet beyond concrete thought into abstract thought. But my notion is that God does indeed speak to us today, and that, among other ways, God speaks to us in and as his Word, as God’s Word is spoken in our reading and hearing and discussing “the Word of the Lord”. Powerful thoughts, and sustaining theology of the Word, a stretch too abstract for a little child.
But it’s not a stretch for you, for you to — from Mark 9:1 the NT Greek word is ἴδωσιν, from its root word ὁράω, I see, I perceive, I realize, I - - understand that God is present in and as God’s Word (in liturgical theology, after all, that is why, as we did just now, we stand to sing our hymn before the Gospel, anticipating Jesus coming present) in and as the Word read, and heard, and (hopefully) preached. So that the people ἴδωσιν (again, Mark 9:1) see, perceive, realize, understand - - God present in silence and Word.
This is why we read Scripture. Why we study in small discussion groups like Sunday School and midweek Bible study. Why we preach it in church Sunday mornings, and why I’m up here now. l tell you something, or remember something, not to impress (or alarm) you with my story; but that something from your own life and story may stir again and let God speak to you from within; because God was there, even imperceptibly, for you at the time, and yes, in the sound of silence.
But that story I always hesitate to tell. And the further into my past it recedes, the more unlikely it seems, until I wonder about myself.
It was a time when, like Elijah, I was stressed unto breaking. I’ll tell it now one last time, again risking my reputation with you.
Winter in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. In fact, it was Monday evening, February 13th, 1984, when I was aware it would have been Pop, my grandfather Weller’s 112th birthday. My ongoing state of mind was stress, severe strain in working with Father Kirk, my rector, whom the bishop had designated as my supervisor upon my ordination, for my training period as deacon and priest. The good relationship between us had become horrible, tense, mean, vicious, intolerable, with words and unending friction and stress. Had so deteriorated that I had written and signed a letter (that Father Kirk talked me out of sending) asking the bishop to either reassign me to another priest, or accept my renunciation of my ordination.
I was most unhappy, stressed. I prayed.
Again and again I’d ask God for a “sign”. I played goofy little games like randomly opening my Bible and pointing to a verse as a possible “sign”. Driving in my automobile, I had taken to driving in silence and then turning on the car radio and listening for a sign from God. But that Monday evening, after what had been an especially stressful Sunday and Monday between the rector and me, I was in bed - - Linda next to me sound asleep.
Let me say that I had recently read Dennis Bennett’s book “Nine O’clock in the Morning” in which he mentions the experience of Father Terry Fullam (of St Paul’s Episcopal Church, Darien, Connecticut, whom Linda and I had met at various events during those powerful years of the Holy Spirit’s charismatic renewal in the life of the church). Terry had been at St Catherine’s Monastery in the Holy Land, on spiritual retreat to work through a difficult life-changing decision. One evening there, Terry felt his mind suddenly drain of everything, all thoughts, all passions, all feelings, drain completely, then instantly fill with what he experienced as the presence of God, and God speaking to him in clear language, God responding to his dilemma.
And so, back to myself, I remember in the silence (I was sitting up in bed, the light still on), I prayed, “Lord, you spoke to Terry Fullam: why can’t you speak to me?” And, exactly as Terry described, my mind suddenly drained empty of all thought, emotion and content, feeling like a bathroom washbasin when you pull the plug - - instantly to be filled with a voice, “I AM speaking to you, Tom Weller”. And in that instant, I saw, perceived, realized, the presence of God in my torment, God’s wakeup call to me. From that moment I let go, opened my eyes and mind, started searching, and a few months later, Linda, Tass and I were no longer living way up North in Pennsylvania, but home in Florida, at Trinity Episcopal Church, Apalachicola.
Looking back, Mark 9:1 again, ὁράω, I see, perceive, realize, understand, that not only that February 1984 awakening, but every rough time in my life had a place in God’s dream for me. Not “God’s plan for my life”, I do not believe in that, but I do believe God has hopes and dreams for my life, and for your life, and for the life of every Christian who is baptized and walking the Way of the Cross. My testimony, as a witness to God’s presence in the sound of silence.
Paul Simon again, Simon & Garfunkel:
And the people bowed and prayed
To the neon god they made
And the sign flashed out its warning
In the words that it was forming
And the sign said:
"The words of the prophets are
Written on the subway walls
And tenement halls
And whispered - - in the sound - - of silence.”
I know that sound.
If you listen, you can hear it.
+++++++++++
Sermon in Holy Nativity Episcopal Church, Panama City, Florida. Sunday, June 23, 2019, the Rev Tom Weller. Text: 1 Kings 19, Elijah and the Sound of Silence. Mark 9:1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4fWyzwo1xg0
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9Dg-g7t2l4
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/21/opinion/sunday/wifi-wilderness-privacy-reserves.html
Mark 9:1
Ἴδωσιν
SA-3P
Root word: ὁράω