Speaking with silence

When we speak of communications, it seems counter-intuitive to counsel the virtues of silence, as Pope Benedict does this year in his message on social communications.

But as we observe Social Communications Sunday, in Southern Africa on September 2, we ought to find the time to stop conversing with others and find silence, that stillness when we can be alone with ourselves and with God, through whom we should always strive to do our communicating.

Silence can, of course, be a form of communication itself. It can convey a dignified response to a slander, for example, or a less decorous evasion of legitimate questions. Silence can also be an act of hostility, especially in interpersonal relations, as the spouses or parents of non-communicative family members will know well.

The trained broadcaster knows the value of a well-placed silence: to emphasise a point, to allow listeners absorb what they have heard, or as an interviewing technique.

Pope Benedict seems to have an appreciation for the latter when he writes: “By remaining silent we allow the other person to speak, to express him or herself.”

Communication is not only about asserting our own voices, be it the interviewer on the radio, public debate or private conversation.

In our era of diffuse media, we need silence to filter and process all the information we receive – the useful and useless, the edifying and the harmful, the truthful and the mendacious. Sometimes it is easy to lose sight of what is important.

The Internet is also a powerful tool of education. It brings together people who share information in an instant which just two decades ago would have required extensive study.

Pope Benedict welcomes this: “In our time, the Internet is becoming ever more a forum for questions and answers.” And he advises: “If we are to recognise and focus upon the truly important questions, then silence is a precious commodity that enables us to exercise proper discernment in the face of the surcharge of stimuli and data that we receive.”

The pope observes that often these questions relate to the meaning of our lives. As a theologian Pope Benedict obviously encourages “profound dialogue, by means of words and interchange”.

But this is not enough. The answers to our existential questions can be found in “silent reflection, something that is often more eloquent than a hasty answer and permits seekers to reach into the depths of their being and open themselves to the path towards knowledge that God has inscribed in human hearts”.

Silence – the lack of distraction by the constant din of information and opinion – can indeed bring us closer to God. In the words of Pope Benedict: “If God speaks to us even in silence, we in turn discover in silence the possibility of speaking with God and about God.”

Silence is also good advice for people who might do damage when they use words. We see this especially on Facebook, Twitter and blogs, when deficiently developed opinions and untruths are spread – and, alas, often accepted – without the aid of an editorial filter.

In many ways the absence of external censorship is a welcome development, even if it has come at the price of creating a society that is less appreciative of good writing, in style and content, than previous generations were.

Often, however, there is a need for more robust self-censorship – an acknowledgement of the importance of silence before making pronouncements.

We can observe that lack of editorial self-control even on some Catholic blogs where proclamations are posted with an aggression and an intolerance for dissenting viewpoints that contributes little to the chief objective of the Church’s social communications mandate: to evangelise.

Pope Benedict’s wise counsel therefore merits due contemplation: “Word and silence: learning to communicate is learning to listen and contemplate as well as speak. This is especially important for those engaged in the task of evangelisation: both silence and word are essential elements, integral to the Church’s work of communication for the sake of a renewed proclamation of Christ in today’s world.”