A Different View - Feb 2012
To speak or not to speak? Surely silence is the safest bet.
To speak is to take a great risk – to lay myself on the line before other people, to interfere in their lives. And speech is famously like toothpaste.
Maybe it was a private conversation - but what did the other person want? What were they looking for, needing from this conversation?
What did I need, what was I looking for, with my tale of woe or my sharing of delight?
And who steered the conversation? Was it mutual, two sided, generous or did it turn into a monologue? Did we really pay attention to each other, really respond with grace and truth?
Did I fall for the allure of being clever, wise or witty? Have I made matters worse? Perhaps a companionable silence would be safer.
Maybe I was with strangers; what then was the appropriate note, the right register to communicate with these particular people at this particular time – how far to step forward, how much to leave for them to do?. What impression did I want to make? And how to stop worrying about what impression I want to make? Better perhaps to keep stumm.
And to preach! Heavens! That’s an impossibility. Best just to read the passage and sit down.
But I have spoken and like Michel Quoist I am, if not furious, certainly frustrated, embarrassed, anxious, uncomfortably aware, that I haven’t got it right – I lost the thread, I said too much or too little – those words were not the right ones – I got carried away on my own eloquence and spoke out of turn - exaggerated, became forceful and insincere - perhaps I was trying to impress , perhaps I struck the wrong note – that expression was too throw away, that example too crude. And so I go over and over what I said, knowing I got it wrong and suggesting to myself that a vow of silence might be no bad thing.
And yet, even though the Trappist way sometimes seems alluring, I know I have no choice. Speaking cannot be avoided; it is the way we connect, celebrate, include, welcome, cooperate.
And it’s my calling ; its got to be done.
So, the speakers’ prayer: ‘From all that is phoney, from all performance, from all display of knowledge, from all that is unkind, untrue or unhelpful, Good Lord, deliver us’.
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