Ssshh...
By Seán Mullan
(From the January - March 2021 issue of VOX)
Lockdown in the world’s cities produced fascinating footage of wild animals roaming urban streets. But in Dublin we didn’t see Phoenix Park deer turn up on nearby Smithfield Square where I live and our urban fox was a regular visitor long before COVID. For us the big change in the first lockdown was birds. With few trees, Smithfield bird sounds are usually seagulls and pigeons, neither of which produce what qualifies as “song” in my book. But during the Spring lockdown I woke often to birdsong; blackbirds and other songsters were in the area. For a few weeks Smithfield had a dawn chorus. Sadly the second lockdown didn’t produce an encore. The building site remained in full swing, which probably wrecked the possibility.
The birds’ song raised a chicken and egg question. Which came first, the silence or the song? Did the absence of delivery lorries, building machinery and early morning traffic cause the songsters to take an Air B & B in Smithfield? Or were they here already? Did the silence bring the song? Or did the silence allow us to hear the song that was already there but never heard?
Silence, the absence of noise is disconcerting for many of us. People used words like “eerie” or “strange” to describe the urban quiet of lockdown. If we live by reacting to noise then silence can be weird. In the city noise fills our day. But noise is not just the stuff that makes our eardrums reverberate. There is plenty of head noise that is as intrusive as external noise.
If we live in reactionary mode then noise and movement are essential to normal living. What do I do with silence and stillness? The understanding is that the city is never silent or still. And the people of the city are never silent or still. They tend to be always in motion – reacting to whatever stimulation the city’s noise and movement conjures up.
Now and again when tiredness or frustration reaches an unacceptable level we move towards silence. But like the child forced by the teacher to sit down we’re “sitting down on the outside but standing up inside.” We pause activities and turn down the outside volume but the volume knob for inner noise is not working so well.
That inner noise and restlessness may be worse while the country is on hold. External silence can turn up the internal volume. Our inability to move around as much makes our inner space a place of restless activity. The activity serves no purpose; it’s just endless chatter.
Was the external silence an invitation? A call to inner silence? Moving towards post-Covid when noise and movement return to “normal” is maintaining an inner journey towards silence and stillness possible? Most of us dismiss that idea. We look down the trail that leads that way and see a large barrier across with the words, “You? No chance.” There is an inner conviction that you don’t have what it takes.
“There is within every human being a capacity for life at a deeper level. Listen to the invitation of silence.”
That’s a lie. You’re a human being - you have what it takes. The journey begins with the desire. Don’t ignore it. Ignore instead the voices telling you that you were not made for silence or that it was not made for you. There is within every human being a capacity for life at a deeper level. Listen to the invitation of silence. Be willing to let go of noise.
At the start, we will struggle dealing with thoughts that will not rest. Like Internet algorithms they lead us from one link to another until eventually we stop in frustration, knowing we have lost focus, we have not been still. We are better off letting them be, those crazy rabbit trails – fighting them just leads to another rabbit trail. Pause rather at the moment of frustration and give thanks – not thanks for the rabbit trails but for the chance to pause and be aware of them. For that moment you have paused. You are still. You are aware. And from that moment you can move into greater silence. For those who believe in God, this is where you connect: be still, and know God.
Long before Internet algorithms led us on cyberspace trails we had our internal algorithms leading us on inner space trails away from peace and rest. We all become that absent-minded person who ends up in a room with no idea why they went there. We need help. The craftsman from Nazareth offers it - “Come to me… I’ll show you how to take a real rest.”
Seán Mullan has been working in church leadership for many years. He has developed a project in Dublin City Centre called “Third Space”.
