silence is golden

While looking for James P. Carse's book "The Religious Case Against Belief" (I'll probably end up having to actually buy this one. The local library and bookstores are too small.) I stumbled upon an earlier piece he had written called "The Silence of God." It's not what you think, some modernist Job-like rant against an absent God who owes us something.

Rather, the book praises silence. A particular kind of silence: the expectant silence of a good listener. The silence that lets you speak, share, and perhaps surprise the listener and yourself. I like this kind of listening. I crave this kind of listening. I seek to do this kind of listening ("be the change..."), though I'm not as good at it as I want to be.

It's hard to be a good listener. Most of us want to be God, that is, to be the one with something to say. And so it is hard to stop everything else long enough for someone to actually say something to you. Especially if they don't couch it with entertainment.

One of the most annoying things I do is to complete people's sentences, because I am too impatient to wait for them to finish. Maybe this would be fine if I always got it right. But all too often I don't know where they are going, and my impatience is offputting enough that I miss out on the surprise someone would have given me.

With books and movies and art I usually seek out things that will surprise me, or teach me, or reveal something I haven't noticed before. And with people I often seek out the weirdos and freaks and outcasts who most people wouldn't want to listen to. But with the people I am closest to, I have often done a poor job of letting them actually tell me who they are.

But the need for a good listener is primal. Many of us crave it so much that we become performers, defensively seeking always to entertain so that people will keep listening. I took a job where, periodically, people have to listen to what I say, and it is the most satisfying part of my week. But maybe all I really want is for someone to pay attention.

(Theologically, Carse's argument suggests that God is a benevolent player, creating us as toys/fellows who are interesting to behold. And the whole point of our existence is therefore to BE, as fully as possible. This may be an argument against the value of divine foreknowledge: if the Creator really wants to listen to us being ourselves, it might spoil the fun if there could be no surprises. )

There is an excerpt of Carse's book availble on the internet that reads like a study guide. I can't recommend it. It is so tersely written that I could only skim it, dipping into random paragraphs in turn, like a set of Confucian analects, rather than continuous reading. I strongly suspect that I am misrepresenting what he has to say. But that's because I'm not as good at silence as I'd like to be, even as a reader.

Lunch yesterday was leftover brisket, personally smoked by my favorite father-in-law. We made it into sandwiches, with rich and sassy barbecue sauce. I strongly suspect I'll have the same thing for lunch today.