Silence

General reading on Prayer has led me to Merton's 'Contemplative Prayer' .

Some quotes and...

"In the way of prayer, as described by the early monastic writers, meditatio must be seen in its close relation to psalmodia, lectio, oratio and contemplatio. It is part of a continuous whole... not so much a way to find God but as a way of resting in him whom we have found, who loves us, who is near to us, who comes to us to draw us to himself." (p29)

In particularly I also noted the ways in which the Psalms are, in Calvin's words an 'Anatomy of the soul' in prayer. Merton reminds us that meditation is above all meditatio scriturarum. The words of the Bible made their own, memorising, repeating them. Additionally, a life of prayer, praying always, are united to the entire days activities in an organic whole and further has a corporate context. Undertaking this daily is a part of the daily dying and rising, mortificatio and vivificatio of the Christian's life in Christ.

The "healing and creative work of [the monk], accomplished in silence, in nakedness of spirit, in emptiness, in humility. It is participation in the saving death and resurrection of Christ. therefore, every Christian may, if they so desires, enter into communion with this silence of the praying and meditating Church, which is the church of the Desert."

Of course there is a challenge to such rhythms of silence, indeed the world's anti-silence. I am reminded in anotehr way of Arvo Pärt (Composer) whose music emerged anew after some self-imposed silence, re-emerging with his music radically transformed. The technique he invented, or discovered, he calls "tintinnabuli" (from the Latin, little bells), which he describes "I have discovered that it is enough when a single note is beautifully played. This one note, or a silent beat, or a moment of silence, comforts me. I work with very few elements —with one voice, two voices. I build with primitive materials —with the triad, with one specific tonality. The three notes of a triad are like bells and that is why I call it tintinnabulation." The first public appearance of this was in the short piano piece, Für Alina. I recommend it.

I am no musician and have little understanding of the technicalities, but this music is audibly a means to appreciate the balances and interplays between a sound note and silence, yet it is silence that is somehow of the essence to allow the note to be heard. A prayerful life in the every day no less is built from 'primitive materials' - our lives and person - and the rhytms of our life are as much determined by the 'communion' with silences. Daily broken, daily reshaped.

In the midst of confusion there is great need to place ourselves -restful in God in silence, and meditate daily upon Scritpure and especially the psalms. Here is Merton's famous prayer:

My Lord God I have no idea where I am going. I do not
see the road ahead of me. I cannot know for certain where it will end. Nor do I
really understand myself. And the fact that I think I am following Your will
does not mean I am actually doing so. But I believe that the desire to please
you Does in fact please you. And I hope I have the desire in all that I am
doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire. And I know
that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing
about it. Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in
the shadow of death. I will not fear for you are ever with me and you will never
leave me to face my troubles alone. (Thomas Merton)