“Speak when your words are more desirable than silence; but love silence when it is better than words” (St. Gregory Nazianzen)
In a culture of constant noise and distractions, one must pay a price for the precious golden gift of silence. We have made the glorious technological possibilities of electronic devices nothing more than noisemakers for so many who prefer the aura of stillness and quiet for the better use of their minds. Everywhere one goes in public, people are holding cell phones to their ears. In grocery stores background music accompanies shoppers with periodic commercials advertising some special sales. Many cannot sit in a living room without the television set filling the room with sound. These sounds are worse than mere distractions. They train our youngsters and ourselves to live with cacophony and take for granted that’s the way we must go on through our lives.
Teachers and educators are challenged with the problem of pupils who lack concentration. Thank the Lord they have discontinued the use of Ritalin to solve that syndrome, but the crisis persists.
American philosophy of education is based on the theory propounded by John Locke. He wrote that the mind at birth is like a clear mass ready to absorb information that enters through the five senses. The images, sounds and feelings go in without much resistance. They are assimilated by testing them against previous information. The new data is evaluated and either rejected or accepted to replace, modify or affirm previous assumptions. Think of a clean blackboard. As one writes on its surface, it fills up with words. Mistakes are corrected by erasing the original words, erasing them at a later time with new information that changes the last data, and pretty soon the blackboard is all smudged, so that it’s nearly impossible to read anything clearly.
If that theory is correct, imagine what happens to a person born in these times who in a few years is overloaded with information, most of it irrelevant, insignificant and worthless in one’s practical routine and life style. How long must it take for a pre-school child to find out that little is to be learned from watching TV? Nevertheless, he or she will go on sitting before the rectangular glass mesmerized by the constantly changing images and sounds. Even in the case of adults, sponsors of the programs recognize that the attention span of most moderns is less than twenty seconds; hence, the brevity of commercials.
Even our services are colored by the speed of our culture and the noises that drown out silence everywhere. If the rites are “too long” by American standards, the Church must change, not the attention spans of the worshippers. Bear in mind that by virtue of having been chrismated in the Orthodox Christian Church you are no longer a member of this world and society. You are one of those who belong to the Kingdom of God. You are mandated to discover the implications of what this means and apply it to your life.
If there is any hope of your ever hearing that “still, small voice” heard by the prophet Elijah on Mt. Horeb (I Kings 19:12), you must learn to love silence and spend time enjoying it. Pay attention to the directive of our Lord Jesus Himself, when He is teaching us the way we should pray: “But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly” (Matthew 6:6).