Our first response needs to be silence - a reflection from Fr Laurence Freeman

I am not saying that the indigenous pockets of wisdom still remaining on the planet hold all the answers. But they are reminders, like friends who stop us from inflicting further harm on ourselves and our fragile planet. If they are to help us, however, we need enough collective sensitivity to what their wisdom means. Without sufficient receptivity in the patient, no healer can work. Locally or globally, contemplatives are the first-level receptors of wisdom.

The ‘contemplative path through the crisis’ will not end when a vaccine for Covid 19 is discovered. The crisis will continue until enough people are on a contemplative path and know, without being told, what wisdom, meaning, surrender, acceptance and the sacred mean. A contemplative consciousness has already been growing silently for some time. Just as Covid has sped up many other existing trends in society – online shopping and working from home – so it has accelerated the evolution of a contemplative consciousness – still side lined or mocked by many, but now emerging as a player on all sides.

The pandemic has reminded us of our inherent solidarity as a human family. It has also exposed the forces at work – like bad government, greedy money-makers and the obscene gulf between rich and poor - that demand correction or punishment. As a sign of our unreality the stock markets are producing great wealth for some investors while the real economy is crashing. But everyone feels the effects of this global crisis; and everyone feels global warming. As hard wake-up calls they recall us to the unity of humanity and the oneness between humanity and the natural world. Any glimpse into this unity and oneness is grace: a moment of true contemplation, a lightning flash of wisdom, a healing touch on the wound of our ignorance. Even if it is painful, we want more of what we experience in these brief insights. Because deep down, as we feel the futility of personal isolation or collective nationalism unleashing chaos and pain, we also want to know what this oneness means.

We face an enigma hidden in a dilemma: the hope concealed in disaster. Our first response needs to be silence. Deep acceptance and surrender release silence. Authentic silence. Not the silence of denial, evasion, refusing to listen to the other point of view, the sound-proofing exclusion of another’s right to exist. This is the silence of the death of the heart that dehumanises and erodes all values. Authentic silence is not escape from bad news or failure but embracing and being penetrated by reality, pleasant or unpleasant as it may feel in the moment. John Main taught meditation so intently because he believed that nothing is more important for modern people than to discover the meaning of silence.

Silence is necessary for the human spirit if it is to thrive. Not only thrive, but to be creative, to respond creatively to life, to our environment, to friends. Silence gives our spirit room to breathe, room to be... The silence is there, within us. What we have to do is to enter into it, to become silent, to become the silence… Silence is the language of the spirit. (John Main)

What makes anything authentic is that we sacrifice ourselves for it, put our whole self into it. Meditation asks this wholeheartedness of us. It gives the opportunity to lay down our life so that we can be lifted up again into a greater fullness of life. Authentic silence is the fruit of pure prayer and saying the mantra is simply a way of pure prayer. After we have taught meditation to a diverse group of MBA students or professionals in the secular world, I sometimes tell them that what we have just introduced them to is prayer – in its pure, essence. They can look mystified, but I have never found they look offended.

Laurence Freeman OSB is a Benedictine monk and the spiritual guide and Director of the World Community for Christian Meditation, a contemporary, ecumenical, contemplative community. Website > https://acontemplativepath-wccm.org/

His book Sensing God is a practical introduction and guide to Christian meditation as taught by Fr John Main and continued through the World Community for Christian Meditation (WCCM) Learn more >