Sanctuaries of Silence
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Three sanctuaries of silence come to mind as I think about creating more space for silence in my life. The first is a quiet lake I love up north in Wisconsin. Shoe Lake is about a twenty-minute walk from a little place we used to have in the Nicolet National Forest. There are only two human dwellings. There’s not an easy boat access. In fact, I’ve never seen a boat other than my kayak on the lake.
At least once a winter, I like to hike to Shoe Lake and stand by the shore. Trudging along, each step I take makes a sound in the snow. I walk off the path and make my way through the deep snow down to the lake. Then I stop and stand as still as I can. The sounds of my footsteps crunching in the snow cease. And there is no other sound. With the leaves off the trees, even the wind is silent. The lake is frozen, so no waves lap onto the shore. I can’t hear any cars on nearby roads, or snowmobiles. Sometimes snow gently and noiselessly falls. All is quiet, absolutely quiet. The silence is stunning, and arresting. I hold my breath so that even that sound ceases. It is a sacred moment. The expansiveness of the silence fills my soul. That moment of beauty alone can just about get me through the long winter.
My second sanctuary of silence wasn’t actually silent at all. But it was unplugged. My wife and I went on a backpacking trip in the San Juan Mountains, near Silverton, Colorado. We left the main road and drove along a pockmarked, unpaved forest road. We parked on the side of the road near a trailhead, and then hiked up three and a half miles and 3000 feet to the Lower Ice Lake Basin. We picked the most isolated campsite, out of earshot and eyesight of other backpackers. We camped in a stand of trees near a waterfall—hence the lack of silence. From there we could do day hikes up another thousand feet to the Upper Basin and some of the most gorgeous mountain lakes I’ve ever seen. Our timing was perfect: it was the peak of wildflower season in the Upper Basin.
Maybe best of all: we were far out of cell phone range. There was no point in even turning on the phone. For four days, we were blissfully unplugged. It was just Amy and me and the astonishing beauty and peacefulness of the mountain basins resplendent with wildflowers. Nothing distracted from the beauty that enveloped us. In its own way, there was a silence to the place: no ringing phones, no TV, no cars, no lawn mowers, no music. Just the sounds of the wind and the waterfall and the afternoon thunderstorms. Only the occasional drone of a jet far overhead reminded us that we were in the modern era.
The third sanctuary of silence was one I found on a visit to the Philippines, in my former congregation’s partner church village of Banaybanay. Like the Ice Lake Basin in Colorado, there was noise, and actually plenty of it. But plugging into the world of cell phones and the internet was not even an option: there was no signal available, no wireless, no computers.
Lots of things contributed to the magic of the visit. Not unimportant among them was the fact of being unplugged. Distractions were not available on my cell phone or iPad. I was able to fulfill my desire to be completely present, savoring each moment with joy and delight. No, Banaybanay is not silent. But there was a quality of silence that nonetheless pervaded my visit, just as much as standing by Shoe Lake or relishing the beauty of the Ice Lake Basin. It is that silence that I desperately need more of in my life.
Why? Maybe more than anything, the quality of silence opens up our imaginations. Silence liberates our imaginations. When we live totally plugged-in lives, drowning in the cacophony of information and data and media overload, our imaginations tend to shut down. When I stand by Shoe Lake in the utter silence, when I sit among thousands of brilliant wildflowers in the Ice Lake Basin, when I walk around Banaybanay fully present with and connected to my new friends and the place they live, my imagination soars. I imagine what it might be like to live a centered, open, peaceful life truly connected to other people and place. I imagine new possibilities for my life and the world. My creative juices start flowing.
The health of my spirit and the vitality of my imagination might depend on my creating sanctuaries of silence in this world that is so full of noise and constant input from all directions, and the exhaustion that comes from trying to sort through it all. As a little North Dakota girl wrote in response to a classroom experiment that author Kathleen Norris did with noise and silence, “Silence reminds me to take my soul with me wherever I go.” May we find sanctuaries of silence that continually bring our souls back home.
Roger has been actively involved in community activities.In Appleton, he co-founded Toward Community: Unity in Diversity, Common Ground (an interfaith clergy group dedicated to improving the health of the community), the Fox Cities Rotary Multicultural Center, and the GLBT Partnership (a support program for LGBTQ youth).He also served on many boards including the Community Health Action Team affiliated with a local hospital system, Harbor House (an organization addressing domestic violence), and Voices of Men (an organization focused on encouraging men to take a vocal stand against violence against girls and women).He has also served Unitarian Universalism in many ways including as a Ministerial Settlement Representative, president of his UU Ministers Association (UUMA) chapter, co-chair of the UUMA’s continuing education committee, and member of the UU Partner Church Council Board.Roger is a consultant on church governance with Unity Consultants, a wholly owned subsidiary of Unity Church-Unitarian in St. Paul, MN.
Roger is married to the Rev. Amy Bertschausen a minister in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ).They live in St. Louis, MO.Amy is the Executive Director of Care and Counseling, a non-profit counseling center in St. Louis.Roger and Amy have two children.Hattie is preparing for a law career.Hattie and her husband Nic Cable live in Columbus, IN, where Nic was recently called to serve the UU Congregation of Columbus, IN—a congregation which Roger served as its first, quarter-time minister in 1988-89.Ian is in his third year of law school at the University of Miami in Florida.Roger’s hobbies include backpacking, running, owning an NFL team (he along with hundreds of thousands of others owns the Green Bay Packers), avidly following the Detroit Tigers and St. Louis Cardinals baseball teams, and enjoying the serenity of a little place (technically a garage) on a tiny lake in Wisconsin’s North Woods.
- Sanctuaries of Silence - December 1, 2020
- The Shadow Side of Vulnerability - October 1, 2017
- Grief—One Year Later - October 1, 2014
