The Irony of Talking About Silence

"The quieter I became the more I heard" - Erling Kagge

I was out for brunch with friends and telling them that I was starting a blog. "What's it about?" they looked at me quizzically. "Oh, silence", I responded - well, aware of the irony of writing a blog about silence.

Each time I've thought about, let alone said out loud, that I'm dedicating my blog to silence, I've chuckled inside and been so struck by the delicious irony and paradox of a blog about silence - And the weird and wonderful sense of humour of God, the Divine, the Great Creator, the Loving One who brings us each into existence and into creativity.

For most, really maybe all of my working life I made my living talking and engaging with the Living Word - I was a preacher and a church minister in my day-to-day life. Then something "funny" - not "ha!ha!" but peculiar, odd, even sad - happened, and I burnt out, and for nearly 20 years I was silent - no professional, no public, no external involvement, no role, no "speaking" of any kind. I wasn't literally silent - I talked with my family, with friends, with my partner, my kids, in small groups, in retreats I went to as a participant, with my doctors, in therapy, in spiritual direction - but in any public capacity or presence I simply disappeared and was silent - I was really invisible.

And then things started to shift.

Kids have a funny way of growing up and "moving on out", this nest became empty, and my journey began deepening and turning inward and going deeper. "Writing", especially journaling, which has always been important to me, became a focus - and at first I thought I'd write a book, or at least a story,which I may very well still do - and yet this other idea started to pester away at me as I thought about writing - What about a blog? - Something, somewhere to reflect - to engage, with myself and my world and maybe with others, somewhere to "put on paper" and "think out loud" all that's rambling in my heart and soul.

So many possibilities went through my mind as I played around and worked through this concept in a wonderful "mastermind" creative group - yet somehow my heart just wasn't totally in it and something was missing. Until one day one of my favourite people in the world and I were talking and she asked me a seemingly simple question - "What if there's nothing to fix about you?" - that totally rocked and changed my world. You see, I'd been seeing my silence and my introversion as some sort of shameful, horrible secret that I carried around and hid inside me. Yet what if this was my "gold", my treasure, and something to cherish - and, in fact, a gift from God to delight in and to share?

So yes, it's ironic to "talk" about silence. Yet silence is also at the heart and soul and a huge part of my life. For so long I've been silent externally, publicly, I feel like I've lost my voice. So in a way this blog is a way for me to find and explore my voice again - and to explore the irony, the paradox, the many sides and sounds of silence - and to hear all that silence has to say to me, and maybe to you.