Through Stained Glass: A Mid-Week Reflection-Burgundy Robes

“If we strive to be happy by filling all the silences of life with sound, productive by turning all life’s leisure into work, and real by turning all our being into doing, we will only succeed in producing a hell on earth.” ~Thomas Merton

Consider your place of worship on the day you worship.

Think about all that makes this space beautiful.

The organ pipes. The stained-glass windows. The choir members in their burgundy robes. Then of course, the people in the pews.

Now, consider the movement of the worship service.

From the moment those bells sing to indicate something is about to happen, to the very end when the benediction is offered, there is something going on.

Now, do me a favor, please.

Consider the silence.

Where does silence occur in your worship?

Good Reformed folk will be quick to point out our silence during confession. We are great at not only holding onto but also claiming our depravity.

Where else is there silence? Like, intentional silence? Not the silence where someone forgot their part or the pastor lost the bulletin.

Silence.

Okay, we get it. You want us to pay attention to the silence.

But what’s the point? Everything we do in worship has meaning. Just check the Directory for Worship. Nothing is done in a half-hazard way.

I recently heard in an On Being podcast that can answer this question:

Mother Theresa was once asked about her prayer life.

The interviewer asked, “When you pray, what do you say to God?”

Mother Teresa replied, “I don’t talk, I simply listen.”

Believing he understood what she had just said, the interviewer next asked, “Ah, then what is it that God says to you when you pray?”

Mother Teresa replied, “He also doesn’t talk. He also simply listens.”

There was a long silence, with the interviewer seeming a bit confused and not knowing what to ask next.

Finally Mother Teresa breaks the silence by saying, “If you can’t understand the meaning of what I’ve just said, I’m sorry but there’s no way I can explain it any better.”

In a vocation and denomination that prides itself on words, here is something to remember:  the practice of silence is the prerequisite for coming to know God. Essentially, silence gives us the language to commune with God where are words are incapable of doing. 

Take time to listen, friends. To others. To yourself. 

With God.