Restraint of Speech

"There are times when good words are to be left unsaid out of esteem for silence. For all the more reason then should evil speech be curbed...[Rule of St Benedict]

One of the ironies of the contemplative life is that you can’t talk or write about silence, or for that matter about what St Benedict calls Restraint of Speech, without using words. Presumably the teacher gives the teaching and then, as it were, pulls the ladder up. Maintaining a blog is perhaps hard to reconcile with Restraint of Speech.

Chapter 6 of the Rule of St Benedict, like all the rest of it, was intended for the monastery situation, so oblates and others who do not live in a monastery have to adapt and interpret. Certainly, in a monastery, few things could be less edifying than raucous laughter echoing down the corridor (see 6:8). But Benedict goes on to condemn in all places any vulgarity and gossip – a somewhat forlorn hope, one would think.

His primary purpose is what he calls esteem for silence, and the Rule has some pretty strict instructions about silence in the monastery. Silence is the space where listening and response become possible, and in which the voracious ego is always going to find it hard to thrive. So most of our contemporary culture regards silence as an enemy. It is immediately uncomfortable and threatening. You have to fill it up with some kind of noise.

But I think we can interpret Benedict more intelligently than just a noise/silence option. Restraint of Speech, it seems to me, has implications in many directions. Oblate discipline inclines us to listen rather than to speak, in company – even when we may have something to say. The prevailing culture thinks it terrible to have some unexpressed thought. Radio talkback is perhaps the ultimate horror product of this. Benedictines on the other hand typically choose not to articulate what they may have thought. Just as well, sometimes. It may be partly a reaction to the mindless conversation that passes for communication in so many settings today – a stream of clichés and off-the-cuff opinions and declarations, often lubricated by alcohol or something else, which structures time and functions as a kind of verbal dance of social inclusion and acceptability. I recently heard a “panel discussion” of some topic on National Radio; three women all talked simultaneously, over the top of each other, for 15 minutes.

The content also of much contemporary communication appals me. Vulgarity, profanity, relentless sexual references, violent attitudes, thinly concealed racism, wilful ignorance – and that’s just in polite company -- all thrive these days, on TV and radio, in the stuff we read, in the conversations you hear. This is by no stretch of the imagination restraint of speech!

News reports thrive on over-worked words. Fantastic, incredible, iconic, awesome, unique, freaked-out... and I could add 100 others. And that horror of horrors, unbeknownst, a silly archaic past participle, unnecessary, embarrassing, simply trendy. We are losing respect for the language, and have long since lost sight of simplicity and accuracy of expression, what one of my former teachers called economy of words. Invite is not a noun. I personally. Right now. For free. From here on in. Closure. Sexy. Funky. O my God.

So I am a fan of Restraint of Speech. It’s a worthwhile discipline.