We sit down in chairs around a table. Murmuring of the friendly kind. Food is passed around—spicy, aromatic soup. Lots of smiles. Bursts of idle chatter. But the noise is not there for its own sake. This is one of those times where the noise looks forward to when it won’t be. So it tapers off—a hush only interrupted by slurps.
Slowly, sound’s absence gains its own substance; eyes rise to take notice of it. This is what we are there for, what we have been looking forward to. As the quiet embraces us, we each hold the small joy one feels after receiving a long-awaited package.
We wanted quiet, and it has come.
*****
I go to a Quaker school. I’m not a Quaker. Before I came to George Fox University, I hadn’t met that many Quakers—but I knew what to think of them. Quakers are crazy, looking over the very precipice of heresy and so damn liberal that they might as well be secular. You have to be careful with the Quakers; they say things that sound nice, but they are wrong.
But now I don’t know. Some of the things they say do sound nice. They might also be true things. I hope to figure it out someday. I’m still not a Quaker, though now I tack on the word “yet.”
All I know is what I know from meeting them: they’re nice and good.
There’s another thing too—not a thing that I know, but a hazy Quaker gift that I can barely taste, or maybe it's a dark reflection in my peripheral vision. It is a thing that can be experienced, but not understood completely: quiet.
The objection: “Oh, you can have quiet without Quakers; quiet is everywhere once you learn to shut up for a second.” Maybe you're right... But not in my experience.
To be clear, I’m not talking about silence. That’s different. Right now, as my pen swirls out the rough draft of this article in a loopy cursive, I’m in silence. The long, thoughtful gaps between the whispers of ink-on-paper tell me this is so. Silence has no intention or meaning or being; it just happens between other things. An accident. Hence the term “awkward silence.” It's awkward because we don’t want it.
Quiet happens when there is a space and a context for it. That’s hard. We are human. We progress. Quiet looks like the verbal incarnation of stagnation. And isn't it?
No. The Quaker tells us to pause. Rest in long, full emptinesses. Nothing is expected. Purposeful nothingness. Sometimes, words flow into the quiet, but they always flow out again. Back to quiet.
For the Quakers, quiet has weighty theological significance. Same for me, just not as much. I haven’t lived it enough, and I’m far from understanding it. I simply experience it, though that alone has shown quiet to be suspiciously truthful.
Quiet has a presence that silence can’t explain. I would use the word “electricity,” but it’s too restless. Imagine the pregnancy of the proverbial “calm before the storm” sans the disquieting side effects.
Before I met the Quakers, all I had was silence. Silence and a suspicion for all things Quaker. Now I have quiet and gratitude. And with quiet, also strength, peace, health—even refuge. Storms are a lot easier to weather if you can rewind back to the calm when you need to. I can. Give me a few friends, some comfy furniture, and maybe a bite to eat—honestly, only the friends are required. Then… quiet.
