Learning to listen
Zechariah is silenced…pt. 2
19 The angel replied, “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news. 20 But now, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time, you will become mute, unable to speak, until the day these things occur.” (Luke 1:19-20).
The angel Gabriel, who stood in the presence of God, was sent to speak words of good news to me. The many many long years – of struggle, of longing, of striving, of praying, of hoping, of my family carrying the shame that my wife, Elizabeth, was unable to have a child – were over. She would conceive, and we would have a son.
Photo by Hulki Okan Tabak on Unsplash
I could scarcely believe it.
And my inability to stretch my imagination to belief did not go unnoticed. As a result, I was rendered unable to speak until the things spoken by the angel had occurred.
Some days it certainly felt like a punishment.
But other days I looked at my enforced silence differently.
When I lost my ability to speak my world seemed to shrink. But over time I came to recognize that as I was forced to listen – listen deeply – parts of my life actually seemed to expand.
I began to go out only when I really had to – so I spent more time at home. Sure, there were times when it felt like confinement – but I also meant that I was spending more time with Elizabeth than we had in years. Since my communication was limited, when Elizabeth spoke to me, I stopped trying to figure out what to say next as she spoke. And as I did, I discovered that I could hear what she was really saying. Though we’d spent many years by each others’ side, I think I learned as much about my wife during those few months than I had in the years with her before then. When I got quiet, her inner world opened to me.
There were days when Elizabeth seemed to enjoy the fact that she could say just about anything she wanted and I couldn’t send back a retort. I grew to love her mischievous smile as she would tease me. But I loved the quiet times we spent together even more.
I couldn’t say “I love you!” or tell her that she looked radiant as the child with in her grew, but I learned other ways to show her the same things. Somehow, the words became unnecessary, and she got the message all the same.
In the months of stillness, I had a lot of time alone with my thoughts. Sometimes that was frustrating, even scary. But it also gave me time to truly process what was happening to us, the miracle that we had been handed. In our twilight years, my wife was finally going to have the baby that we’d prayed for, that we’d longed for, since we were young! I was drawn back to God, in awe that God had visited us, had taken notice of my prayers, had not forgotten us. Though I couldn’t say a word, I experienced gratitude in a new way.
How do you pray without words? Of course I could speak in my head, and I am confident that God heard these prayers as well as the ones I spoke out loud. But I grew even more confident that God heard the prayers emanating from my heart, the ones that were deeper than words. The desires, the longings, the pain, the joy, all that was stored up within me. And I discovered that I sometimes didn’t say anything at all in my times of prayer, and still the Almighty drew near.
As the day of the promised child’s birth approached, the stirrings in my heart began to form into words once again. In my head I began to hear fragments of a song of prophecy, of praise, of joy. For a long time, this song was for me alone, taking shape in my ears with nowhere to go.
And when our son was delivered, those gathered around Elizabeth didn’t believe that she had given this child the right name. So, of course, they turned to me – the man in the room. This time I was not going to make the mistake of dithering about the angel’s instructions. I wrote without hesitation: “his name is John.”1 In that moment the weight that had held my tongue since my encounter with the angel shifted. And the first thing that I did was burst into song – the same song that I had had been hearing within as I sat in stillness and silence.
“…The tender mercy of our God,
the dawn from on high will break upon us,
79 to shine upon those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the way of peace.” (Luke 1:78-79).
God’s light had broken upon us. God’s light had broken upon me. And the miracle of my son’s birth was richer, more meaningful, and more joyful than I could have anticipated, in large part because I had been forced to be quiet, to truly listen, to contemplate, and to receive rather than to pour out for the months prior to his promised birth.
The encounter with this angel left me unable to speak for many months, and sometimes those months seemed to crawl by. But in retrospect they flew, and though I didn’t choose it, I look back with fondness on that time of learning to look at and listen to the world, and the Divine, differently.
….Though not quite enough to take a vow of silence again…
Photo by Andraz Lazic on Unsplash
Someone else’s words of wisdom
So I give thanks for our deep coinherence
Inwoven in the web of God’s own grace,
Pulling us through the grave and gate of death.
I thank him for the truth behind appearance,
I thank him for his light in every face,
I thank him for you all, with every breath.
Malcolm Guite, “Thanksgiving: a sonnet” in Sounding the Seasons.
Luke 1:63.