December 30, 2006
Silence redux
Christmas 1
Once upon a time near Christmas, a teacher asked a group of first-graders what love means. A seven-year old answered: “Love is what’s in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen.”
I can hardly think of a more exciting time, especially when I was a youngster, than opening presents on Christmas morning. The larger the family, the noisier, the more laughter — the clatter of new things, the music, the shouts of joy. Think of the contrast if everyone stopped for a moment, everyone in the house and especially around the tree. The electric train at a standstill. The horns set aside. The dollies not crying. Remember the song, “The Sounds of Silence”? Such silence as this does indeed make a sound.
When the teacher asked his students what love means, one said, “Love is what’s in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen.” When we listen to that silence, maybe we can hear all the thought, all the shopping, the wrapping, the cooking, all the pleasant remembering of friends and loved ones, for now and in other Christmases past. Perhaps someone may realize in the silence that there’s a reason we call gifts “presents.” They are certainly not “pasts.” They are not “futures.” They are presents. They are gifts in the “now,” not in the “then” and not in the “when,” but in the “now.” They are presents.
Ever so often, you’ll remember that in the liturgy, in the words we say and hear, the music we listen to and sing, there’s a time for silence. That short reminder usually comes after a reading or after a sermon or in the prayers of the people. It says “Silence may be kept.” It does not say that silence shall be kept. It says that silence may be kept.
One meaning of that is that silence — here and now — us yours to keep. You can do with it what you will, what you wish. Silence is a gift, a present, for you. You can even take it with you and use it whenever you need it. For most of us, there’s always a time when silence, even a little silence, will be welcome. It can be a time to remember, maybe even to remember love, that God loves us right here and now in the present. Every time we gather here in this place, silence is given and silence is kept. We take and keep these silences. One time, a visitor here was so surprised by the silences that they thought the priest had somehow lost the place.
There are gifts here and presents every time we come together. They are God’s gifts of bread and wine and story, of sound and music, bells and horns and violins, of our choir, of words, of signs and symbols. When we are reminded that silence may be kept midst all this, as with the first-grader’s answer about love, perhaps if we stop “opening” all these gifts, love may be, love can be especially noticeable. The love of your family, of your friends, of your neighbors, if we will but listen for it.
And remember midst all this that God is love. God is the love in the Christ child whose birth we remember as God’s present to us. God is the love in our hearts as God’s presence with us. God is love in Mary’s and Joseph’s puzzled joy. God’s love in this place is yours. With the silences, it, too, may be kept. Of all the gifts in this life, said St Paul, love is the greatest, the one that lasts forever, the one that you can take with you, that you can keep.
Please take the silences. When you can, fill them with love. And one day, perhaps, you may bring them back. You are always welcome here… and loved.