May 2023 Rector’s Message

Do you like silence? The empty tomb was a place of silence, it is defined by what is not there. In April at clergy conference we were reminded that the practice of silence is a simple and perfect gift. It isn’t about performance or issues or accumulation and instead teaches us to let go. Our speaker, Reverend Mark Bozzuti Jones suggested that silence is the language of God, that it is God inviting us to notice and love the world.

The pace of the season of Easter after the doing and doing of Lent and Holy Week feels closer to silence. It is a gift of a space to ask questions about what matters and what does not in the loving light of the Resurrection of Jesus from the dead. The volume may change but the call to prayer and practice does not. We have a habit of taking our foot off the gas as we slide towards summer. And that can be a good thing, especially if it allows us to listen and look as God intends. I hope you will also remember that the movement recalled in the Acts of the Apostles is one not of silence but of active mission. Boldly going where no one had gone before. We can do both, develop a rhythm of fresh action and silence that loves and listens.

Philosopher David Whyte says this of silence: Real silence puts any present understanding to shame, orphans us from certainty, leads us beyond the well-known and accepted reality, and confronts us with the unknown and previously unacceptable conversation about to break in upon our lives. (Consolations)

For the month of May can you invite the Easter practice of silence into your life? Two times a day, three minutes of silence. Soften your gaze, put down your devices and lists, and just be present in the freedom of silence? Be in a fresh conversation of the unknowingness of Easter?