May 22, 2009

There is tremendous power in silence. It is not the same as lack of communication. There is so much more to the world than the sound and fury on the surface of our minds and hearts. I sit in the morning sun and ask myself...

How do I see the world? It is a dangerous, frightening place with judgment lurking around every corner. And so I sit quietly in the shadows, observing much but giving nothing away, in anticipation of not being able to get it back.

"A friend is someone who never lets you down and always lets you in." Christian's definition of true friendship. In the full knowledge that I will always fail on both those counts, how do I find the resolve to begin the race? There is simplicity and safety in solitude.

My life is very compartmentalized. I have never considered that to be a bad thing. Living alone (which is possible to do even on tour, by the way, if one is resolved) makes it easy to live your life in careful, well-ordered trajectories. It makes living in community seem impossibly messy and convoluted.

Why is it so hard, nigh unto debilitating, for me to pray aloud with another human? It feels like getting a running start to scale a fence, only to find that it is electrified. Then, in light of that discovery, it becomes just that much harder to screw up the nerve to take that leap. A weak analogy at best, but it's what comes to mind. Each time I fail, getting back up and trying again feels harder.

I'm finding a similar block in determining the balance between Christian-as-counselor and Christian-as-friend. I front-loaded our interaction with so much deeply personal crap right up front, and that feeling of vulnerability makes me less inclined, willing, even able to give anything more away. Logically, it would seem that having it all out in the open would make things easier. So much for logic. I just want to stop the madness and sit quietly and think other people's thoughts for a while, and wait for that still, small voice that makes itself known only in the silences.

Perhaps it's not disingenuous to say that I believe we learn more truth about people by listening carefully to the things they don't say. There is wisdom and understanding and truth in the silences. Forthright communication so often feels to me like a form of violation. We are entitled to our innermost thoughts.