Silence and speech – 12 April 2019

…he will, when I speak, be nameless. And to others I implore you: speak the names of those who were lost, rather than the name of the man who took them. He may have sought notoriety, but we in New Zealand will give him nothing. Not even his name. (Jacinda Ardern in the NZ Parliament, 19.3.19)

This caught the attention of, among many, Dr Cynthia Lindner of the University of Chicago Divinity School.  She wrote in wonder of “a media-saturated moment” in which the NZ Prime Minister counsels silence. 

Silence…?  Dr Cynthia points out: …it is a cause for pause when we are asked, implored, not to speak something.  Choosing not to say -- that is, choosing silence -- runs counter to our impulse… That impulse is understandable, and not insignificant, as some of our voices have been hard won.

Of course, the events of 15 March in Christchurch were followed by torrents of words.  We had media reporters, themselves deeply moved, trying everything to make sure we had the facts, even about how people allegedly felt.  We had the police issuing warnings, and officials giving instructions.  We had the stumbling testimonies of witnesses and wounded… and their friends and family.  Then came the wordy reactions of leaders, philosophers, teachers… and of other prime ministers and presidents. 

Through it all, our Jacinda counselled silence about the gunman’s identity.  A week later, having to say something at a vast community event in Christchurch, she said perhaps three sentences – and then sat down.  During the week she had made only the necessary statements, about security and about gun law.

In many ways it is indeed better to be still.  A lot of people don’t know that.  Silence is one of the “thin” or liminal spaces, writes Dr Cynthia.  Silence is a “place” where the light may shine through, where we may hear a word that illuminates, changes things.  So it is important to know how to shut down the chatter and be still, and to wait.  God’s first language is silence, said St John of the Cross – the Moslem Sufi poet Jalal al Din Rumi, said it some three centuries earlier.  Here are words from an American poet laureate, Billy Collins:

And there is the silence of this morning
which I have broken with my pen, a silence that had piled up all night
like snow falling in the darkness of the house—
the silence before I wrote a word
and the poorer silence now.   (“Silence” by Billy Collins, 2005)

Dr Cynthia points out that “free speech” has unfortunately come to mean, not restraint or discipline, but hapless, heedless, and regardless of harm.  It is certainly so in the social media.  It is time to brush up on silence.  Most of the time we do not have to proclaim who we are and what we stand for.  We do not have to plant stakes in the ground about what we are for or against, or what we think.  It is time to be what we are, consistently, to enjoy the openness Jesus makes around us.  Dr Cynthia, who for all her advocacy of silence is still pretty good with words, reminds us… of the subversive power of silence that can help us reclaim the story…and relearn the world.