(Photo Credit Unsplash – Ben White)
These days I have little time for prayer. I am in an era of my life where I am busier than I have ever been, working multiple jobs, and still trying to remain present to my husband and children. But still I wake up early every morning to pray, because I know how important prayer is, especially in the busiest moments of our lives (it was St. Francis de Sales who wisely said, “Every one of us needs half an hour of prayer a day, except when we are busy – then we need an hour.”) I know that the more I have to do in a day, the more I need God’s grace to help me do it.
So although I faithfully begin each day with prayer, that prayer is structured, purposeful, goal-oriented, and time-sensitive. I am aware of the clock ticking down to the minute when I must end my prayer and begin my day – there is a looming deadline, a cut-off point. I only have so many minutes to say these prayers and do these things, read this passage, jot this note, close the book, before I have to go.
And for now, this is ok – morning prayers said as well as they can, a rosary prayed on the go whenever I can fit it in. God knows my busyness, he sees my rush, and he honours my effort to eke out time for him in my day when there is nearly none.
But then. Here is Advent. It arrives at the end of a busy semester, a busy year, just when I need it the most. The Church enters into a time of waiting, a time of invitation to quiet our hearts amidst the noise, to make space for the Creator to come to us in this world and in our lives. For me, every year, this is a call to more silence.
Our current culture doesn’t make such room for silence. We have a tendency to fill the space: we have music on in the background wherever we are, we listen to podcasts when we’re on the go, we avoid any encounter with quiet. In conversations, we eschew the lull, filling what feels like awkward silence with more and more words. And for me, even when I do find myself without any audible stimulation, it’s my own noisy thoughts that fill the quiet space. At least in my own life, there is little time or patience or tolerance for silence.
In the 1970s, anthropologist Keith Basso spent time with the Western Apache of Cibecue, Arizona, and noted particular situations in which silence was not only tolerated, but expected, when it was, in fact, “right to give up on words.” These included times of courtship, responding to insults, or when children returned home from residential schools – in each of these situations, the act of silent waiting and listening was the proper response. For example, when two people met for the first time in a group setting, it’s unlikely the two would have been introduced or introduced themselves, each preferring silent listening over filling the space with small talk. In fact, strangers who were too quick to jump into conversation were eyed with caution, suspected of wanting to get something out of the encounter rather than to simply be a part of it.
How often is my prayer just like that: a jumping into conversation with a goal in mind – to says these prayers, makes these requests, check these boxes, and, ultimately, have my wishes granted. And how little time do I spend simply being present in the encounter, sitting in the relationship, being still in the silence.
Coast Salish Elder Roberta Price calls this the Presence of Silence, the act of sitting with another, and listening, and waiting. In silence, she says, there is no haste, no hurry. It slows us, it stops us from being so goal-oriented (what can I get out of this conversation, this encounter, this prayer?). Instead, silence stills us, and allows us simply to enter in.
Rather than add new prayers to my morning routine during Advent, I do something of the opposite – I add silence. Instead of rushing in, saying the things, speaking the words, I give up on words for a just a little while, allowing the silence of the encounter, and letting myself sit still in relationship with my Creator for just a moment, which is, in fact, the ultimate goal.
Holly Gustafson lives with her husband, James, and four of their five children, in Regina; they attend Christ the King Parish, where Holly works as the sacrament coordinator. Holly teaches linguistics at First Nations University, and pursues her love of the art of language through public speaking, writing, journaling, and calligraphy. The best advice she ever received was from her spiritual bestie, St. Faustina, who told her that when in doubt, “Always ask Love. It advises best.”
