A Different View - Feb 2012

Thursday, 23 February 2012 05:20

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’.

A Different View - Jan 2012

Thursday, 23 February 2012 05:20

In the darkness, in the aisle of the great auditorium, a little Chinese girl was dancing. Her eyes were fixed in concentration on the dancers on the stage as she skipped and tapped, replicating with remarkable skill the Irish rhythms of Riverdance.

But tell me little girl - are you friend or foe? Communist or Capitalist? Have you read the Little Red Book, or do you know the stories of Jesus? Do you consider Chinese resurgence an economic miracle or an ecological disaster? What have you to say about human rights abuses, and the occupation of Tibet? Do you hanker for revenge for the Opium Wars, or yearn for the great days of The Nation?

Watching you dance, the words of Psalm 8 come to my mind; 'From the lips of children and infants you have ordained praise because of your enemies, to silence the foe and the avenger.' Before the psalmist calls us to contemplate the wonders of creation and the dignity of our race we are called to worship by the praise of the children - praise that transcends the past - praise that opens the door to the next revelation of the creative glory of God.

The little dancer knows nothing of foes or avengers. By her exuberance all enmity and vendetta, all the inherited and learned hatreds and divisions of the centuries are silenced.

Dancing the steps and rhythms of people who come from the other side of the world, she is at one with them, fused in the joy of movement and beat, carried on the energy of the music.

And I, turning on the television on the off chance and seeing this joyful performance, am invited to become a little child again and to enter the Kingdom of God. At least for the duration of this programme the foe and the avenger, the knowledge of evil that destroys humanity, is silenced as I Iose myself along with thousands of delighted Chinese watchers in the great auditorium, caught up in the universal ecstasy of the dance.

And a little child is leading us.

Here in Beijing, as in Bethlehem and Belfast, every new year and every new life brings us again to the brink of that new world when they will not hurt or destroy in all God's Holy Mountain, because the earth will be filled with the knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea.

A Different View - Feb 2012

A Different View - Jan 2012

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