Tokyo is a bustling busy city, with flashing lights and a population of over 14 million. Yet as I slept in one of its many 12 storey high hotels, the city lay eerily silent. I expected to be woken up with tooting horns, chatting commuters, and the busy sound of cafes and corner shops serving the millions on their way to work. But it was as quiet as a mouse. As we travelled around the city, people walked calmly, their voices were low and polite, even in a crowd the noise was kept to a minimum. I just couldn’t believe that amongst 14 million people I could find such silence and the peace.
What is it in the Japanese culture that enables this? From my very limited knowledge, the value of modesty seems to be a prime agent. This is a sense of being controlled and respectful, understanding that you can look after yourself and care for others through doing so. Rather cheekily my husband said that Japanese modesty was the opposite of me, I obviously argued back… case in point. The silence within Japanese culture even bleeds into Japan’s art and creativity, where the space created in each piece, be it through pauses, held poses or white space in a painting, says an awful lot more than the movement or painting itself. Space is part of Japanese culture, and creates moments where we can pause, think and breathe. This silence amongst millions of people, gave me an incredible amount of thinking time. It tapped into my contemplative and reflective side.
But sitting with my thoughts, feelings and emotions so often became unsettling. The silence was giving me the time to really see myself and others, and what we find isn’t always comfortable. I have a lot of feelings, and my spiritual director advised me to sit with them, and let them ride out, discovering God amongst them. So I sat with my unsettling feelings… it was hard… but as I did the silence disarmed me. It was as if a light was shining in the darkness and I knew what had been troubling me for so long. The silence had found me, and I was finally able to call out to God from a place of honesty. I live in a quiet rural village in England and I had to go to a city of 14 million people to discover more of myself and God in the quiet. It’s a little ironic but says a lot about our concept of contemplation and hiding away with God. We don’t need to go to a silent retreat to let the light in, perhaps being round others who already know what it is to be quiet and attentive is just what we need. The quiet can find us even when we are surrounded by others, it is disarming but healing. It reveals who we are before God, the naked truth, and makes us attentive to the Spirit’s voice in the quiet.
I have to say that one evening we had sat through a quiet restaurant, in a quiet street and we needed noise to settle our souls. So, we hunted out the equivalent of London’s Oxford Street and just walked through the noise of shops closing, bags rustling, fast street cars parking up in highly sought after spots, and accumulative quiet chatter from all the shoppers. That was relaxing. We don’t always have to be the reflective, contemplative, mystic, but it’s helpful when we want to understand ourselves and hear a little more of God’s whisper sometimes.
Be it around millions of people, or on your own in your home, I encourage you to stop, to breathe and to let the silence speak. It’s both disarming and healing and it’s right where we can find God.
Jo Allen
Director South West
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