Finding Strength in Silence
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Mother Teresa said: “To keep a lamp burning, we have to keep putting oil in it.”
I first started doing volunteer work in college. I volunteered with Beyond War, a non-profit that highlights the dangers of nuclear war. I volunteered with Results, a non-profit that uses the power of letter-writing to effect policy change on hunger in developing countries and the United States. I volunteered with the National Organization for Women, a non-profit that promotes the equality of women and men.
My first career was centered around humanitarian emergencies, those that occurred because of armed conflict. My last position doing that work was a year in Bosnia right after the end of that civil war. I listened to many, many women and men provide intimate details of the impact of that war on them and their families.
I let my lamp dim so much that I could no longer see my way toward continuing that work or my volunteer work. I had what is sometimes called compassion fatigue. It took five years before I returned to volunteer work.
What I know now, that I did not know several years ago, is that renewal starts from a quiet space. Silence can be a hard commodity to find in our busy lives: either real silence, where you don’t hear anything but the rushing wind, or virtual silence, in which you quiet the noise within. But it is critical that we find that silence, for, as the writer Henri Nouwen reminds us, out of solitude comes the renewing energy that will let us feed the hungry, clothe the naked, witness suffering, challenge institutions, demand justice.
Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King writes about seeking solitude before making the final decision to go forward with a march in which he would submit to being arrested. Here was the situation: many people submitted to non-violent arrest as part of the civil rights movement. They would then be bailed out by a bondsman, with the Southern Christian Leadership Council providing funds for the process. As Rev. King describes it:
Late Thursday night, the bondsman who had been furnishing bail…notified us he would be unable to continue. The city [Birmingham] had notified him that his financial assets were insufficient. Obviously, this was another move on the part of the city to hurt our cause. Good Friday morning I sat with 24 key people. As we talked, a sense of doom began to pervade the room. Finally, someone spoke up… “Martin, this means you can’t go to jail. We need a lot of money. We need it now. You are the only one who has the contacts to get it. If you go to jail, we are lost.
He was referring to the 300 already in jail, and the belief that no one else would consent to being arrested if they didn’t know how long they would be jailed. The big march scheduled for Sunday, Easter Sunday, would have to be called off. Rev. King continues:
I sat there in the midst of the deepest quiet I have ever felt, with two dozen others in the room. There comes a time in the atmosphere of leadership when a man surrounded by loyal friends and allies realizes he has come face to face with himself. I was alone in that crowded room. I walked to another room in the back of the hotel suite and stood in the center of the floor. I think I was standing also at the center of all that my life had brought me to be.
Rev. King found a quiet place, a place of solitude, so that the divine could speak within him, so that he could listen deeply. Giving ourselves time for solitude lets our hearts bloom through accepting our whole selves: the broken parts, the healed parts, the places full of joy. We transform our woundedness exactly when we embrace it and offer ourselves compassion, and offer ourselves in compassionate service to those in need.
- Finding Strength in Silence - February 1, 2014
