Why is it that every year I go (which I do mostly out of Dad’s memory), I start by counting the hours and can’t wait until it’s over. And yet, despite this, the three days always fly by in a flash and by the end I’m simply all fired up with the spirit and ready to take on the new year with a vengeance.
We’ve discussed the silence many times through the years. For some reason, even the retreat directors have always noted that women have a tougher time with the silence than do men. Maybe this is just because women are more in touch with their feelings than are men and express themselves more freely, but I can assure everyone after having gone through the experience for twenty years now, that men have just as much difficulty with the silence. It’s very intimidating to newcomers which is why it’s difficult to recruit people for these things. But the amazing thing is that, once experienced, everyone finds they prefer the silence and the most common complaint every year is that too many people violate it.
There are multiple purposes to the silence. The Jesuits always explain the philosophy behind this unique and very traditional approach to prayer during the Friday evening orientation every year. As they put it, we live in a very hectic and harried world where we are all just inundated with noise. There is so much noise in our world that we often find ourselves in a perpetual state of exhaustion just dealing with that much. So the silence serves first to calm us down and force us to relax. And our silence is not just no talking. It’s no noise period. No television, radio, music, cell phones. We even use gestures to ask for condiments at meals. (Okay, we are at liberty to listen to meditational music on headsets in the retreat center library since music is a well known device for promoting meditation.) So perhaps "silence" is not really accurate. It’s really a "no noise" retreat.
But the more sublime purpose of the silence is deeply spiritual. As the Jesuit fathers constantly remind us, God is always with us, God is always speaking to us. But often it’s in a whisper. So the silence serves not only to calm us down and force us to relax, but it is in a totally quiet environment that we have the best chance of hearing it when the Lord speaks. Each retreat has its surprises, but we can only have the sensibilities to recognize those surprises when we are in silence. It happens to all of us, as we discover on the final morning when we get together briefly to do some sharing. Quite often it doesn’t happen until the very end, but it always does happen. We all get touched, we all hear a message, we all achieve some sense of clarity about our purpose in life and how to proceed with our lives. We all leave feeling completely refreshed and ready to take on the world. It’s better than any vacation!
As hard as it to get people to try it, almost everyone who does try it finds themselves so invigorated that they can’t wait until next year when they can come back and do it again. That is why we have men who have come back 20, 30, 40 years in a row. This year we had a record – one retreatant was doing his 44th year at Manresa. For some, it even becomes a family affair, with men bringing their sons and even their grandsons. This year, four generations of the O’Brien family showed up - the 85 year old patriarch, 60 year old grandfather, 35 year old dad and 11 year old great-grandson. Yes, we all get touched. Three days of silence and we all get rested and refreshed and achieve some greater clarity of purpose, leaving fired up and ready to take on our worlds with all their joys and problems.
That’s why we do it.
But this year was a little different. Almost always, I don’t get touched by the fire of inspiration until sometime in the final morning. This year was the opposite. This year, we had an opening lecture that was so awe-inspiring that it set up the entire weekend right away. Father told us a true story about an experiment the Washington Post conducted in 2007 to measure the different ways that people perceive beauty, or don’t perceive it depending on your point of view. I will share this remarkable story with all of you now ...
In Washington D.C., at a Metro station on a cold January morning in 2007, a man with a violin played six Bach pieces for about 45 minutes. There’s really nothing terribly unusual about such occurences in major urban centers like D.C. There are itinerant musicians in every city in the country. The very unassuming man stood there in a sweat suit and baseball cap playing his violin, the only other distinguishing feature being a second baseball cap turned upside down at his feet as an obvious receptable for donations.
During the 45 minutes, approximately 2,000 people went through the station, most of them on their way to work. After about 3 minutes, a middle-aged man noticed that there was a musician playing. He slowed his pace and stopped for a few seconds, and then he hurried on to meet his schedule.
ABOUT 4 MINUTES LATER:
The violinist received his first dollar. A woman threw money in the hat and, without stopping, continued to walk.
AT 6 MINUTES:
A young man leaned against the wall to listen to him, then looked at his watch and started to walk again.
AT 10 MINUTES:
A 3-year old boy stopped, but his mother tugged him along hurriedly. The kid stopped to look at the violinist again, but the mother pushed hard and the child continued to walk, turning his head the whole time. This action was repeated by several other children, but every parent - without exception - forced their children to move on quickly.
AT 45 MINUTES:
The musician played continuously. Only 6 people stopped and listened for a short while. About 20 gave money but continued to walk at their normal pace. The man collected a total of $32.
AFTER 1 HOUR:
He finished playing and silence took over. No one noticed and no one applauded. There was no recognition at all.
No one knew this, but the violinist was Joshua Bell, one of the greatest musicians in the world. He played one of the most intricate pieces ever written, with a violin worth $3.5 million dollars. Two days before, Joshua Bell had sold out a concert hall in Boston where the seats averaged $100 each to sit and listen to him play the exact same music.
This is a true story. Joshua Bell, playing incognito in the D.C. Metro station, was organized by the Washington Post as part of a social experiment about perception, taste, and people’s priorities. The experiment raised several questions:
In a common-place environment, at an inappropriate hour, do we perceive beauty?
If so, do we stop to appreciate it?
Do we recognize talent in an unexpected context?
One possible conclusion reached from this experiment could be:
If we do not have a moment to stop and listen to one of the greatest musicians in the world playing some of the finest music ever written with one of the most beautiful instruments ever made ...
How many other things are we missing as we rush through life?
Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away ...
So that was our opening lesson on Friday evening. And I’ll add a coda of my own: with music being so pervasive in our culture, I have to believe at least a few of the 2,000 people who rushed by this violinist were almost certainly talented amateur musicians themselves. Amidst all the city noise, even they failed to recognize the beauty of Joshua Bell’s performance. Yet every one of the little children did. Beauty is all around us all the time. But most of time we are so surrounded by noise and cynicism and negativity that we are unable to see it.
That is what I took away from this retreat. And that is why we spend three days in silence. A world of beauty is always revealed to us that we never before realized was there.
To close I’ll share just one more brief thought. The world of beauty the silence reveals to us is not the most important reason we do this. The theme of this year’s retreat was the oft-quoted passage from chapter 15 of St. John’s gospel, "This is my commandment: love one another as I have loved you." Immersed in this message, during one of the two sharing sessions we had, one of the men made this remark that I felt summed the whole thing up: "When you pray like this and are truly communing with the Lord, it is so much harder to go back out in the world and be a jerk, to be dishonest, unethical, abusive." Yes it is. Going back to our regular lives and mistreating people and being a jerk is just not compatible with this message that we are so focused on and certainly does not jibe with the spirit and fire we are filled with.
And that is as good a reason as any for why we do this.
Hey Mike, This was inspiring!! I remember going on retreats with mom and really do miss those quiet moments and the SILENCE! I liked the story of Joshua Bell - will use that sometime. Thanks for keeping me in your prayers. luv, MJ
ReplyDelete