Silence

Yesterday, in the meeting I was in, we participated together in "A Liturgy for Midday Prayer" before we broke for lunch.  (If you are interested, it is #13 in the Upper Room Worship Book.)  The liturgy begins with a time of silence.

I have noticed that silence is difficult for some, especially for those who lead community prayer.  A very short amount of time seems to be very long, resulting in brief quiet times of reflection before the leader  moves on to the next element of worship.  The time feels insufficient for me.

I liked what the leader of this time of worship did to prevent that rushing to speak; she asked a participate to set a 2 minute time period on his iPhone stopwatch, and asked him to break the silence when we had reached two minutes with the next element of worship, which was the Call to Prayer.

My impression of that quiet time of centering is that it positively effected the entire time of worship.  Those two minutes to be silent with God allowed us to enter into prayer and scripture reading with an openness and readying.  I hadn't thought of that before, but I commend it to you as a practice you might want to try.

Later that day, a person shared that he had had a conversation with a Quaker once, and had asked him, "How do you know when to speak in worship?"  The Quaker's answer was, "I speak when the impulse to do so is more powerful than all of my efforts to remain silent."