CREEDE HINSHAW: Today, stillness is hard work

We were taught, by renewed Experience, to labor for an inward Stillness; at no Time to seek for Words, but to live in the Spirit of Truth, and utter … Truth opened in us. — John Woolman, Journal, 1747, page 37

I’ve been reading the renowned Quaker John Woolman’s Journal. Woolman, a devout practitioner of the Friends faith, traveled the Eastern Seaboard encouraging Quakers. He was a simple man who abhorred slavery, avoided luxury, practiced simplicity and sought God’s inner peace and truth.

The above words leapt off the page in this season of many words.

So much screaming and shouting. So much bile spewed. So much erupting invective. We seem to believe if we talk long enough and loudly enough, if we interrupt the other consistently enough or repeat the same words, truth or lies, with enough rudeness we can batter down all resistance.

An 80-year-old man is dead this week because – in a bar in New York – he asked a 65-year old man why he was maskless. I don’t know whether the question was asked politely or rudely, whether the 80-year-old was curt, obnoxious or gentle. Maybe he didn’t ask at all; maybe he mocked or belittled the other man. But now he’s dead. The 65-year old had a reply, punctuated by shoving the 80-year old to the floor where he died.

A male Georgia Tech athlete apparently bumps the rear end of the car in front of him at a fast-food drive-through. Both motorists get out of the car. The athlete unloads an expletive-laced rant and tirade at the female. Maybe she started it; maybe he started it. But his words are shocking and offensive and he is disciplined by the school.

How many videos have you watched where two apoplectic combatants, righteous and out of control, scream at each other like banshees, lobbing verbal grenades in a take-no-prisoners assault?

Some believe they have the right to say anything to or about anyone without consequences, conveniently ignoring taking personal responsibility for one’s speech. A former athlete at the University of Georgia has filed a federal lawsuit against the school after being kicked off the baseball team for screaming racially offensive words at Sanford Stadium even after spectators urged him to desist. The lawsuit, among other things, claims the aggrieved man’s “freedom of speech” gave him the right to say what he wanted without consequence.

I write these words on the eve of the vice presidential debate and in the wake of the debacle of the first presidential debate where both men, but particularly President Trump, would have served our country – and their cause – better by less talk and more listening.

Quakers aren’t the only faith whose tradition encourage silence and stillness, but they come to mind as some of the most consistent practitioners of this spiritual discipline. Note Woolman’s words above: “We … labor (italics mine) for an inward Stillness.” Finding the discipline and the maturity to speak sparingly doesn’t come naturally. Very few people know how to seek and to find the Spirit of Truth via silence and listening. Stillness is hard work.