One of the weirdest things for me is when I have made a major decision about something - getting a new/second hand car being one main example - and I then see the same model car, including colour, everywhere. Well not in my back yard but around and about on the streets and parking centres. I think to myself that lots of people must have the same good taste as me and that my taste is pretty common. Apparently there is a phrase for this - “frequency illusion”. In the internet world of memes it is also called the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon. The phenomenon is caused by the way our minds work. When we are struck by a new word, thing or idea our selective attention is triggered. We then unconsciously keep an eye out for it and notice it more and more. Another process also kicks in, “confirmation bias”, that seems to assure us that the thing as gained overnight importance and omnipresence. Putting it simply this phenomenon is a result of our focus. Just as the phrase, ‘we are what we eat’ describes the way our bodies, our being, is formed by the substances we ingest so our perception is formed through our focus. Literally our focus changes our perception and the phenomenon happens unconsciously. (A related concept is intention, which I intend to look at next week). So when we embark on the practise, work and study of silence we begin to see signs and wonders of it everywhere. Psalms we have long prayed with now speak of silence. As we listen to music we have returned to again and again we hear the non-sound between the notes, the non-sound that joins it all together. As we still the internal chatter and commentary we find our lover, the forest, the birds and the sea all reveal something beyond description. Our focus also leads us. It is like a thread that weaves in and out of our experiences. Study, or the learning of something, is most satisfying when we have the time to follow the thread. A stand out example of this for me was my recent discovery, or rediscovery of psalm 65. Here is the thread: During my daily study I came across the phrase ‘competens silentium’ ,which lead me to a series of articles on monastic silence, which lead me to an obscure masters thesis on the development of medieval Dominican theology, which revealed that psalm 65 verse 1 has had an interesting translation history, which lead to the revelation that the numbering in the Hebrew Tanakh bible is different to the Latin vulgate, the King James Version and every other version except one (but don’t quote me - I could just be very lost), which eventually lead to a comparison with the literal Hebrew text and the usual English translations and lo and behold….. what we usually read as something like “You are to be praised, O God, in Zion” is actually, “For you silence is praise, O God, in Zion” (*). A whole word, a whole concept has completely dropped out. A whole word, a whole world and way of living is gone as if it was never there. Interestingly, the Message Bible has it back in. No doubt there is a whole story as to why our translations are bereft of this idea. However, I am at least silenced by this verse in its original Hebrew. Dumb struck that our translations seem to have missed something so special. Awed that in following the threads thrown by focus and intent we stumble across beauty and deep truth. “For you God, silence is praise. Silence is praise. Silence is. Silence” Peace & Love Rebecca "One of the reasons why communal worship or private prayer seem to be so dead or so conventional is that the act of of worship, which takes place in the heart communing with God, is too often missing. Every expression, either verbal or in action, may help, but they are only expressions of what is essential, namely, a deep silence of communion" (Anthony Bloom, Living Prayer Darton, Longman & Todd 1975 p vii) (For those who may be interested, the original Hebrew verse, the one with silence in there, was a key part of Meister Eckharts developing theology).
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Rebecca Newland:
Exploring balance, silence and contemplative living Archives
November 2016
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