Sounds and Silence (with apologies to Paul Simon)

My failure this Lenten season started the way most of my failures do: because of hesitation. I hedged, waited, and second-guessed myself so long that the season started without me.

Growing up Catholic, of course, I found it simple enough to give up candy every year. I seriously considered that again this year, and then I thought about broadening this to include all sweets. Then, when I realized that Ash Wednesday had passed and I was eating pie, I moved from giving up food to performing what I thought of as a spiritual discipline: I considered practicing a daily round of forgiveness. Finally, I considered vows of silence.

But, as noted, Lent was already well underway. Friends had given up things like Facebook, and I was still talking way too much. I’m a teacher, after all. Teachers talk to control classrooms. Talking is the way most of us attempt to control our lives. That’s why silence—no longer advancing my own causes, for example, or giving excuses for my behavior—seemed worth doing.

Then I wondered, How would I do my job and observe Lent that way?

Meanwhile, Holy Week came and went.

This is how not to write a paper for school. And this is how not to observe Lent. In the final analysis, in failing to observe silence—and to listen and not put myself first—I understood that I also failed with knowing when to talk.

Yes, I would often not talk during this Lent season when I probably should have said something, that is, when it would have taken real bravery or conviction to speak up. At those times, when it was easy to keep quiet, then I was silent. But when I felt my own interests being jeopardized, then I found my tongue.

A Lesson from the Dentist's Chair

The dentist’s chair was perhaps the time when I best understood the benefits of a held tongue. A few years ago, I had a particularly talkative hygienist, who found out that I was an English teacher as she clipped the dental napkin over my chest before sticking the hose in my mouth and beginning her work. Then, with me open mouthed, she talked. I found out that she was 56, loved reading history and was reading of the Sioux nation, the brave cavalry, and how the “Indians” were crazy and the cavalry were brave and had advantages against greater numbers of “Indians” (again, she had my tongue pushed aside so I could only listen) who, of course, “were fighting against annihilation,” trying to save themselves. She had also read the biography of Rod Stewart and talked about his being ten years younger than his siblings and lucked out getting into music.

I learned a great deal just listening to her, and not just about the Sioux or Rod Stewart. I learned about her.

At one point, she removed the hose and asked me about my favorite book.

“Gatsby,” I told her. As I did, I realized suddenly how unimportant it was to have to tell her that. It wasn’t going to matter that much to her life.

“Really?” She seemed disappointed. “I read that in high school.”

“It’s lost on high schoolers,” I said. That was the last thing I said as she gave me the hose and observed that there must be deeper meanings she had simply missed.

I learned much with my tongue tied, listening. The longer it went, the effect was like fasting from food. I was fasting from talk, and in doing so, I was learning about the weakness of talk and of my own need not to say so much.

I still know that now conceptually. I just don’t know it the way I could have had I practiced it this Lent.