+Z’ev

Today’s assigned readings:

2 Samuel 6:12-23, Romans 4:7-12, John 1:43-51

Eve of the Transfiguration:
1 Kings 19:1-12, 2 Corinthians 3:1-9,18

Jesus answered, “Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these.” And he said to him, “Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”
John 1:50-51

He said, “Go out and stand on the mountain before the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by.” Now there was a great wind, so strong that it was splitting mountains and breaking rocks in pieces before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind; and after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake; and after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire; and after the fire a sound of sheer silence.
1 Kings 19:11-12

First, a comment on the NRSV translation of 1 Kings 19:12 - we’re used to reading “still small voice” or some version thereof. The Hebrew could mean “the silent voice” or “the voice of silence”. In the Hebrew text one can be reminded of Simon and Garfunkle’s The Sound of Silence and I fear that, perhaps, that’s where the translation committee found its phrase. They are not alone, however, in the lack of a voice: the (very conservative) Douay-Rheimes version says “a whistling of a gentle air” and the LXX says “sound of a gentle breeze”. It appears it is the KJV (et al) who add the voice in…

A bridge fell down this week. Many are dead in Iraq, many are dead elsewhere around the world. We look for the hand of God to explain these actions: and we ask, “How Could You Allow This!?!?!?”

And there is nothing in response but the sound of silence.

I love emotional religious experiences: dancing, laughing, weeping (my favourite!). I’m swept up into awe-filled wonder during Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D Minor - especially played in a large, acoustic space. I love to get swept up into mob scenes, like Harry Potter (major disappointment) or the Triumphant Parades that followed the Mets’ World Series victory in the 1980s. I love loud music and the emotions it can stir. I love making out to thumping base techno. I love to weep to the final movement of Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony.

But where I honestly turn to God, there is nothing in response but the sound of silence.

Jesus is amused at Nathan’s response to his (Jesus’) powers of soul discernment - and Jesus promises some fabulous visions. And the disciples saw the dead rising, the blind sighted, the deaf hearing and the lame leaping.

But in the end, there was only the sound of silence… and corpse on a cross… an empty tomb.

One of the things hardest for me to do is sit in Zen silence: my mind fights, demanding to say something. But in the end, God is in the Sound of Silence and when I can still my mind - chanting a mantra like the Jesus prayer, the Ave Maria or just by breathing - that still mind becomes tuned to God. It’s not the still small voice - as one might think of a child’s prayer - but rather the sound of silence.

So much of our religions are dedicated to words. I love words! I have prayer books and chant tapes from several different traditions. I’ve used prayer books from Judaism, Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Methodism and Anglicanism. I’ve written a Wiccan prayer book. I invented a series of magical invocations based on the works of Aleister Crowley. The Gnostic Order in which I was ordained is perhaps the most-attuned to words - its liturgies being as verbose as a book by J. K. Rowling. Perhaps most evidently, I love words so much that I have two blogs. Icons are referred to as “written”; a simple mistranslation of the Greek word for “paint”, but it highlights our attachment to words. There are lectures and talks, podcasts, internet radio. You’ll even hear modern teachers insist that the Jesus prayer or the Ave Maria isn’t a “mantra” but “really a prayer” as if there were a difference. We are so hung up on words that we can miss the Word: Jesus, himself, love incarnate. He is the only thing said in the sound of silence.

We might see great things, but we will hear nothing.

Much love,

Huw