{"id":18595,"date":"2018-10-24T17:10:23","date_gmt":"2018-10-25T00:10:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/?p=18595"},"modified":"2018-10-24T17:10:23","modified_gmt":"2018-10-25T00:10:23","slug":"silence-has-many-faces","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/silence-has-many-faces\/","title":{"rendered":"Silence has many faces"},"content":{"rendered":"

By<\/strong>\u00a0Rev. Paul Graves\u00a0<\/b><\/h4>\n

Dear Katie, Claire and Andy,<\/p>\n

Wow! It\u2019s been 21 years this month since I first wrote a \u201cGrampa Letter\u201d to you, Katie, one month after your birth. Taped to my computer is my favorite photo of you, shortly before you turned 7. You sit silently next to Periwinkle Creek in Albany, Oregon, a tiara on your head. Your pensive, beautiful face hides your silent thoughts.<\/p>\n

This photo reminds me that silence has so many faces. I am drawn to your silence there. It speaks clearly, even though your thoughts are yours alone in that particular moment. Silence can be mysterious for observers. Sometimes the content of silence shouts clearly.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Rev. Paul Graves<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I\u2019ve seen each of you usually verbal kids in moments of personal silence as you\u2019ve grown. Sometimes I see your silence was a big pout, or anger you didn\u2019t want to express, or sadness for being scolded, or grief at losing something you treasured. Circumstances can often identify our silences.<\/p>\n

But we don\u2019t always know why another person is silent. Even when we do, our own silence is often the best gift we can offer another person. Recently, I\u2019ve coined another mantra that makes sense to me: \u201cWhen words get in the way of what we want to say, silence is a thoughtful option.\u201d<\/p>\n

I subscribe to a bi-weekly magazine called The Christian Century<\/a>. In the most recent issue was a collection of short stories written by subscribers, all about silence. Each person\u2019s experience of silence was unique to the circumstances, yet all reflected a sacred silence. A holy ground silence.<\/p>\n

Grampa asks you to think about some times when you want, actually need, silence in your life \u2013 even for only a few minutes. We all do. We need to take deep breaths when our hearts start racing, or our heads ache in overload. Silence can become a cool drink of water to our parched or overloaded spirits.<\/p>\n

Nearly every day, I am reminded that silence is a sacred moment. Maybe one reason it is so special is that most people \u2013 including you and me \u2013 aren\u2019t very good at being silent. We be overwhelmed with noises from everywhere outside us, and from our competing inner voices.<\/p>\n

As I watched immigrant children sitting silent in cages on our southern borders, I could only imagine what grief and fear their silence betrayed. As I read stories of domestic violence victims silently cowering in a bedroom, I can only imagine what being a victim silenced by fear is like.<\/p>\n

So many negative silences rip up the landscape of most every person\u2019s life, kids. But I must affirm that even the more horrendous reasons for silence do contain a seed of the sacred within them. In those silences, we can experience a glimpse of mystery and wonder.<\/p>\n

Sacred silences are the \u201cstill small voice\u201d that tickles our imaginations, caresses our internal curiosities and moves us to push beyond our self-made limits. Sacred silence is not for the timid, kids. It urges us to stay within our own spirits but only for a time of incubation.<\/p>\n

For silence to become sacred, it can remind and must remind us, that life is so much bigger, grander, more mysterious than just us. Silence may be imposed on us from the outside or inside. Still, its sacredness calls us to not only close our mouths, but release our fears of whatever grips us.<\/p>\n

There is great and healing power in silence. If we cringe in silence, fear has the power. When we choose silence as our companion, fear is diminished and hope is ignited.<\/p>\n

Love, Grampa<\/p>\n

\n

The Rev. Paul Graves serves as the chair for the\u00a0<\/i>Council on Older Adult Ministries<\/a><\/strong> for the Pacific Northwest Conference of The United Methodist Church.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“As I watched immigrant children sitting silent in cages on our southern borders, I could only imagine what grief and fear their silence betrayed,” writes the Rev. Paul Graves in a letter to his grandkids. In his message Graves considers the power of sacred silence, both in times where it is a reprieve to a noisy world and in moments where it is an alternative to a silence born in fear.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":18596,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[502,142,113],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-18595","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nurturing-elders","8":"category-older-adult-ministries","9":"category-opinioneditorial"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/silence.jpg?fit=1200%2C627&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2l75j-4PV","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18595","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18595"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18595\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18598,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18595\/revisions\/18598"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18596"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18595"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18595"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18595"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}