Douglas Todd: Longing for a Silent Night, and 'something beyond ourselves'
Credit to Author: Douglas Todd| Date: Mon, 23 Dec 2019 23:45:55 +0000
Car traffic. Concrete mixers. Dish washers. Buses. Airplanes. Pounding restaurant music. Beeping computer “notifications.” Jackhammers. Sirens.
We often say we hate noise. But we also seem addicted to it — and afraid of its absence.
Yet sometimes stillness, a sense of silent peace, can catch us unexpectedly. And sometimes it can take hold of us through the most popular Christmas song of all time.
Silent Night — composed 201 years ago by a small-town Austrian organist on Christmas Eve — has been translated into 140 languages. In 2011, UNESCO declared it an “intangible cultural heritage.”
In the midst of one of history’s most horrifying hostilities, opposing German and British troops in the mud-packed trenches of the First World War took it upon themselves to suddenly declare a Christmas Eve truce. They joined together to sing — “silent night / holy night” — during an incredible evening of detente.
Silent Night is reverential, contemplative, elegant. And universal.
Somehow, despite its roots in traditional Christianity, Silent Night’s evocation that a newborn baby get the chance to “sleep in heavenly peace” can touch us to the core. It can inject a sense of wonder and tranquility into Christmas clamour.
At its worst, noise can be dangerous to our physical health and cognitive ability. Researchers in Munich, Germany, found residents’ blood-pressure levels went up after a new airport opened. Another study found low reading test scores among children at a school located by a highway. The students’ results improved after the installation of noise-proofing.
However, the concept of silence doesn’t always refer to the complete absence of sound. The term can also point to an inner reality, an experience of quietness within ourselves — a peace that passes understanding.
That seems to be the kind of feeling countless people can encounter when Silent Night is sung, even roughly, by family members and friends crammed around a living-room Christmas tree. Or in a sanctuary.
St. Andrew’s Wesley United Rev. Gary Paterson recalls how at the end of every 11 p.m. Christmas Eve service in his downtown Vancouver church each member of the packed flock is offered a white candle.
“The moment of silence lingers in memory” when the congregation at St. Andrew’s Wesley United Church hold candles and sings Silent Night at Christmas Eve services.
“Slowly the candles are lit, the light moving up and down the pews until the whole sanctuary is ablaze with a thousand flickering flames. The organ, which has been softly hinting at the melody of Silent Night, now swells gently and invites us all to sing “Silent night, holy night, all is calm, all is bright,” Paterson says.
As the hour slides past midnight and into the first few minutes of Christmas Day, Paterson says the singing of Silent Night ends. “And there is a hush. As if we recognize that we have, for a moment, become one body, that something holy has just happened, is still happening, and we want to linger in the quietness — no movement, no sound, the darkness, the candles, the stillness.”
Then, abruptly, the lights are turned on, the organ postlude soars, and the crowd pours out of the church, chattering, re-entering the noise and busy-ness of Christmas. *
“But still the moment of silence lingers in memory, in the heart, and we remember that we encountered something beyond ourselves.”
‘The calming presence of a song that characterizes peace and the heavenly in the form of an infant is completely irresistible,’ says Lynn Szabo, Trinity Western University professor emerita in English literature.
Lynn Szabo, professor emerita of literature at Trinity Western University, says the universal appeal of Silent Night in part comes from its genre as a lullaby, since its harmonies are soothing in themselves.
“The calming presence of a song that characterizes peace and the heavenly in the form of an infant is completely irresistible,” says Szabo, a specialist in monasticism and the work of Thomas Merton, one of the first 20th-century Christians to explore Zen Buddhist meditation.
Silent Night offers a glimpse into the counter-cultural lives of those who practise the art of silence, of reducing “the noise within.” Deep silence is a profound experience available to monastics, she says, but also to runners, solo athletes, musicians, writers, painters and dying patients.
Perhaps because Szabo has long practised contemplation and the art of sacred poetry writing, she believes she had an experience of that kind of inner silence during a horrifying accident several years ago, which has left her using a wheelchair.
After falling one dark night into an unmarked construction pit, she remained quiet and calm, even though she knew at that moment, judging from the sound of her own breaking bones, that she would never walk again. “Silence,” she says, “is the point at which words run out.”
Vancouver Archbishop Michael Miller, who oversees the region’s more than 400,000 ethnically diverse Catholics, says people long for silence, but also fear it.
People long for silence, but also fear it, says Vancouver Archbishop Michael Miller.
“Silence can be intimidating, for it lays bare the soul for itself. We often find silence uncomfortable. It can mean an awkward lull in a conversation. It can signify loneliness in a crowd. It can mean isolation. So we often fear silence and run from it,” Miller says.
“But there is also a different kind of silence, a silence associated with awe before the grandeur of nature or the beauty of a profound relationship. Silence is much more than the absence of words. Silence prepares for presence. One must be comfortable with the transcendent to be comfortable with silence,” Miller says, adding Silent Night “brushes just shy of being sentimental” as it communicates a simple intimacy and connectedness.
The age-old attraction of Silent Night also seems to mirror the current attraction of meditation, mindfulness, contemplation practices and centring prayer, to which millions of North Americans are flocking these days to calm their frazzled nerves and inner exhaustion. Many people know they need an antidote to their frantic pace and the distracting media barrage on their smartphones, TVs and laptops.
Vancouver pastor Samuel Chiu, who has been actively supporting protestors in Hong Kong, says he observes on buses and subways in Canada and Asia just how intensely many people have the need to constantly be plugged in.
“In my opinion, people seem to not be aware of being battered by noise, whether it’s actual noise or electronic ‘messages.’ One statistic says the average North American is bombarded with 3,000 different ‘messages’ each day,” Chiu says.
Vancouver Pastor Samuel Chiu suggests in difficult times the kind of tranquility associated with Silent Night can offer a path to understanding ourselves and others.
Silent Night captures the serenity of the traditional story of the birth of Jesus in a manger, says Chiu. “Regardless of our religious convictions or confessions, the birth of this baby carries our imagination to a peaceful and calm scene. And we all prefer that, in the midst of the cruel reality we face almost every day.”
Given life’s harshness, Chiu reminds us Silent Night emerged out of a romantic era in Christianity. Its ideal presentation of the birth of Jesus “was no way near the reality he and his family were actually in” since Mary and Joseph were severely indigent refugees being chased down by Roman occupiers.
Conflicts somewhat similar to those in Jesus’ era continue to rage today in the West and East, Chiu says. He is not alone in suggesting in difficult times the kind of tranquility associated with Silent Night can offer a path to understanding those around us, including those with whom we might often noisily disagree.
Interior silence forces us to be open to the Other, to let them speak.
As Szabo says, “The connection between silence and empathy are profound. One cannot listen without being silent. One cannot empathize without listening.”
(* The sanctuary of St. Andrew’s-Wesley United Church is closed for renovations in 2019. It will re-open in 2020.)
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