I relate to Matt in a lot of ways I wasn’t expecting. The closest I’ve ever come to his physical pain is broken bones, and I have never lost a member of my immediate family. However, when Matt talks about silence, about mentally separating oneself from their surroundings, I know exactly what he is talking about.
While Matt’s experience of silence, at least so far, seems to be primarily separation from his physical body, my own experience was a separation more like his mother’s. One of personal, emotional, and even relational silence. Like Matt, this silence came about as a natural defense mechanism rather than a conscious decision. The habit of turning inward had imposed itself upon my life before I could really realize what I was doing, never mind understanding why I was doing it. Only looking back on it can I attempt to fully analyze the experience.
What’s interesting is I first disagreed with Matt’s definition of silence as both extremely filling and extremely empty. While going through it, I only realized the empty side of it, but there’s a definite fullness to it as well. For one, there are fleeting feelings of wholeness of your individual self when you turn entirely inward. There is also the fullness felt when you give yourself up to complete concentration, and there is the feeling of protection when the only person you are depending on is yourself. Unfortunately, all of these pros have counterparts, at least with the kind of silence I have experienced.
I have been told numerous times that we cannot grasp the fullness and entirety of God’s wholeness until we realize our own brokenness and devastation. This, to me, is the best analogy of realizing your individual self through silence. It is grasped for a second, only to come back to the reality of humanity’s constant state of depravity.
Much like grasping this last concept, concentration is fleeting. We all have at least one thing that causes this silence; the one activity in life that absorbs us, causing us to forget there is a world outside of that moment we are participating in. For some it is reading, others sports, and so on. Matt seems to be suggesting, although I have not gotten to this point somewhat purposefully, that this silence, this moment of disconnection (and therefore connection with your entire being), can be controlled, and thus extended. This seems amazing once you really grasp what silence is; however, I have found that there is a certain danger to learning to fully disconnect and depend on oneself, even if it is through complete concentration.
We have all taken Examined Life I, so we all know the five dimensions of a person: physical, emotional, intellectual, spiritual, and social. In order to live fully, we must develop all of these dimensions. Perhaps my stumbling upon the phenomenon of silence instead of being taught it’s proper uses is the cause, but I found that the overuse of silence as a tool of escape lead to an atrophy of the emotional and social dimensions of my being. I drew inward often, and while it lent me some peace and comfort in times of need, it cut me off from true emotional healing. It also inhibited me from trusting others with my process of healing.
All of this sounds rather pessimistic, but I don’t mean it to be. I truly believe that something so powerful as silence as Matt describes it, can and should be used in an amazing way. I am excited to keep reading and learn how.
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