February 5, 2007VOL. 45, NO. 3Oakland, CA

COMMENTARY

Silence – the language of intimacy and the language of God

A budget and health care drama is playing out in Sacramento

Silence – the language of intimacy and the language of God

By Father Ron Rolheiser

“Nothing resembles the language of God so much as does silence.”
Meister Eckhard wrote those words. What do they mean? Among other things, they speak of a deep mystery.

What language will we speak in heaven? We don’t know, but we have some inkling of it in the deep experiences of intimacy we have on earth.

In our deepest experiences of intimacy and communion, we come together beyond words, in a silence that isn’t empty but is too full for words.

In heaven, I suspect, just as in our deepest experiences of intimacy here, there won’t be a need for words. We will know and be known in a language beyond ordinary words, in the language of intimacy and the language of God.

We already experience this somewhat. Sometimes, for instance, we understand someone or feel understood by someone intuitively, beyond words, beyond anything we’ve ever spoken to each other, and often this understanding is deeper than the understanding we come to through normal conversation.

The same is true for intimacy within community. I remember doing a 30-day Ignatian retreat some years ago. About 60 of us were on the retreat and we arrived there as total strangers. The 30 days were spent in silence, except for celebrating Eucharist together each day in the chapel. We ate our meals in silence, never recreated with each other, and never, except for two very brief occasions early on in the retreat, had any conversations with each other at all.

Yet, when the retreat ended we had the feeling that we knew each other more deeply than we would have had we socialized and talked during those days. The silence was a powerful language, stronger than words, and it brought us into community in a way that words often cannot.

I’ve experienced this too inside of religious community. I am a member of a missionary order, the Oblates of Mary Immaculate, and one of the things our founder, St. Eugene de Mazenod, mandated for us was that, each day, we should sit together as a community in chapel for a long period of silence.

My experience has been that whenever we do this, something akin to a “Quaker silence,” the silent time spent together does more to bind us into community than do any number of community meetings. Silence is a special language.

But that doesn’t put silence in opposition to words. Silence and words need each other.

Words take on greater power when they issue forth from silence, just as they begin to lose their force when they are constant and never-ending.

Conversely silence is more powerful after we have already come to know each other through words. There are things that we can only know through silence, just as there are things we can only know through conversations inside of a community.

That is why solitude is such a paradox.

Solitude, as we know, is not defined as being alone, but as being at peace, as being restful rather than restless. And we all know the strange anomalies that can happen here.

Sometimes we are at a celebration with others, but we are too restless to enjoy the occasion or even to be present to it. Socializing with others paradoxically serves to heighten our restlessness and disquiet.

Conversely, sometimes we are alone, away from others, but are restful, comfortable, and at peace inside of our own lives. Being alone paradoxically works to still our disquiet and silence is what brings us into community.

And so it is important that we try to learn the language of silence, just as we also try to learn the words that can help us know each other.

There is a huge silence undergirding us and inside of us that is trying to draw us into itself. To enter that silence is to enter the reality of God and the reality of our real communion with each other. For this reason, all great religious traditions and all great spiritual writers emphasize the need for silence at times in our lives.

Sadly, we are too often afraid of silence, afraid of being alone, afraid of what we might meet there. Too often silence speaks to us of loneliness, of missing out on life, of being disconnected, of being in a tomb of non-life.

And so we cling to each other and look for conversations, amusements, and distractions that can fill in the silent spaces in our lives. Ultimately this running away from silence is founded unconsciously on the fear that deep down
something is missing, both inside of the world and inside ourselves, and we are best to cling to whatever can protect us from that painful truth.

But that fear is unfounded. As Thomas Merton put it, there is a hidden wholeness at the heart of things and that hidden wholeness can only be discovered if we get to the deepest level of things. And the language we need to get there is the language of silence - the language of God and the language of intimacy.

(Oblate Father Ron Rolheiser, theologian, teacher, and award-winning author, is president of the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio, TX. He can be contacted through his website www.ronrolheiser.com.)

A budget and health care drama is playing out in Sacramento

By Steve Pehanich

The start of a legislative session is always filled with hope, some drama and a little trepidation. In the coming months – and the two-year session to follow – our representatives will script either an uplifting storyline or remake the same old soap opera.

The plot line includes a budget proposal which cuts assistance for children significantly – a questionable call at best; expansive health care proposals to cover all or most Californians; and an unjust, deteriorating prison system.

Re-elected by one of the largest margins in California history, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is fighting to restore the Golden State’s luster, and calling for a new spirit of cooperation which he named “post-partisanship.” Give him credit for vision.

His most ambitious – and admirable – goal is revamping California’s health insurance system. With 6.5 million residents uninsured, the effort is long-overdue.

Two Democrats, Speaker Fabian Nuñez, and Don Perata, Senate President Pro-tem, offer alternatives. While differing on critical details, the governor’s plan is sometimes more “progressive” than the Democrat versions.

Complicating things, California’s has fallen from the fifth largest economy in the world to the seventh or eighth. Very limiting budget procedures, funds restricted to specific purposes (often by voters), federal mandates, and a built-in deficit are some of the factors contributing to our decline.

Days before the governor announced his insurance proposal he also launched a trial balloon – removing thousands of children from cash assistance. The contrast is startling, if not somewhat puzzling.

Cutting aid to children is not due to something the children have done, but something their parents have not done – find work.

Last year’s Federal Deficit Reduction Act – where tax cuts masqueraded as deficit reduction – changed many critical regulations and definitions. Among them is the definition of work.

CalWorks – our state’s assistance program – is geared toward getting people to work. When they don’t, a series of sanctions take effect, culminating in an end to all aid after 60 months. Never in California, however, has assistance to children been stopped.

Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, the governor is apparently betting that such a move will encourage people to work. The flaw in this approach stems from a misunderstanding of poverty.

Roughly one-third of people on assistance face some unforeseen circumstance. They have the skills to better their situation and will do so with a little help.

Another third have deeper problems. They were born into generational poverty – growing up in poor families, not learning basic life or work skills. With the proper help, they too can leave poverty behind, but it requires more time and addressing issues in society – such as discrimination – that perpetuate generational poverty.

The final third are poor because of mental health issues or chemical abuse. They may have life-long problems that defy simple solutions. Many of those on the street are in this final category and, sadly, many are veterans. They often have children, sometimes being raised by aging and struggling grandparents.

In any case, why punish the children? In none of these circumstances will doing so encourage people to work. Those with the skills to leave poverty need no more incentive.

Generational poverty may actually increase because those who need more help will find it harder to get. Their children may be condemned to the same fate as their parents. And the final group need far more help than threatening their children’s well-being.

Many elements of the governor’s budget cuts are a stark contrast to his health care plan.

To his great credit, Governor Schwarzenegger has called for covering all children regardless of legal status.

He also requires more of insurance companies than either proposal by Democrats. And he requires employers to pitch in to cover those who cannot afford insurance. (A recent court ruling calls into question employer mandates.)

To their credit, some business leaders have not only embraced this concept but said it does not go far enough. Why? They recognize the severe community health threat and expense of having 6.5 million uninsured residents in California.

But like any good drama, this one has a twist – prisons. The cost of new prisons and hospitals needed to remedy an unjust situation will be tremendous. It will complicate all political decisions in the coming months.

Who are the heroes or villains will be determined with the passage of the budget this summer. The health care debate is likely to play out over the two years of the legislative session.

The efforts to insure all Californians and grapple with the budget maze will not be easy – nor will it make all people happy. But if we can improve the situation, it will be a large step to restoring the luster of California and a resolution to a drama that will benefit everyone.

(Steve Pehanich is executive director of Catholic Charities of California. He deals with public policy issues in Sacramento, supporting the 12 Catholic Charities agencies in the state. Email him at spehanich@cactholic.org.)

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