Commentary on Chapter 6 of the Rule of Benedict
Silence here is considered not only as rules about when to speak but the reason, and meaning of the ‘spirit’ of silence. Benedict is a practical not an abstract theologian. ‘The one who prays is a theologian and a theologian is one who prays’, said Evagrius. Yet reading this chapter carefully helps us understand the mystical tradition better too – why, for example, Meister Eckhart says that ‘there is nothing so much like God as silence.’
This short chapter opens the mind of the Rule to us. As ever, it is saturated with Scripture, actually thinking in the words and with Biblical ideas especially those of the Psalms and Wisdom literature. ‘The Prophet says I have set a guard to my mouth”. Like the Letter of St James that he also quotes, mindful speaking is seen as part of the guarding of the heart – the watching at the door of the heart for the birth of negative thoughts or ‘demons’ like those of anger or greed. To have a watchful heart we need control of speech and there is no control without restraint.
Benedict focuses on spoken words but in our media-driven world, with our compulsive and often impetuous use of cell phones and email we would be wise to extend this to all our technologies of communication. Knowing when to wait before clicking ‘send’ or phoning someone back needs discretion, the ‘mother of all virtues’. Especially when we are agitated or like to close a conversation we need this mindful restraint and patience. Seeds of any of the eight ‘principal faults’, the seven deadly sins can be latent in any speech act. St Augustine distinguished between the voice and the word that is carried on the voice (John the Baptist was the voice, Jesus the Word). And the medium can carry a virus (verbal or nonverbal) that distorts the communication of the message.
So important does Benedict consider this that he says permission to speak should rarely be given even to good disciples. It is for the teacher to speak and the disciple to listen. In our culture of self-expression and self-exposure this is hard but necessary to grasp. It is about self-restraint, however, not repression due to fear. We are led again as often in the Rule to the connection of discipline (in love not fear) with liberty and maturity.
As in our meditation and saying of the mantra, positive, conscious silence requires deep listening. Strong mutual obedience, which is the fruit of listening, then leads to harmony and union between individuals and in community, not to impersonal hierarchy and subordination. It means more than just doing what a superior officer tells you. In order to enhance the living conditions favourable to developing this Benedict comes out strongly against coarse jests, idle words and words that move to laughter.
In any group of people humour can be abused. It can become a superficial avoidance of real communication. The laughter can ring hollow – ‘laughter at what ceases to amuse’ as T.S. Eliot chillingly put it. When the spirit of silence has been understood and respected, however, the laughter in life becomes joyful not cold, celebratory not cruel.
Our daily meditation develops all that Benedict means by the spirit of silence. But we can always benefit, too, from examining the practical ways we live this by taking the opportunities for silence – in the car, in the kitchen, in our daily exercise, even in mindful emailing and cell-phone use. Benedict looks at the practice to test the theory.
With much love
Laurence
This letter appeared in Via Vitae, the Benedictine Oblate Newsletter – No. 9 – December 2008 .