Cultivating Silence

by Midnight Freemason Contributor

RWB Michael H. Shirley

“All men's miseries derive from not being able to sit in a quiet room alone.”

~Blaise Pascal

Silence & Circumspection

My kids seem to require stimulation most of the time. Whether it’s the internet, TV, or other kids, they want noise, and quiet often seems a purgatory to them. They both like to read, but they don’t see reading as an antidote to boredom. Being made to sit in a quiet room alone, in their eyes, comes close to child abuse. 

I wasn’t like that when I was a kid, and I’m not like that now. My room was my sanctuary. It was the place I could live in silence.

I’m not sure that my library at home qualifies as a quiet room, given all the books that scream “read me” every day, but I sit there every day, morning and evening. Sometimes my wife, Debra, will be beside me in her favorite reading chair; at other times I’ll be alone with my books. Occasionally, one of us will read something aloud to the other, but for the most part, the only sound is Clare, our Boston Terrier, snoring gently as she sleeps in her spot next to Deb. We are both silent, alone with our thoughts, and that silence has a presence all its own. It’s a necessary restorative for us both.

Lodge isn’t exactly quiet, given the number of people there during meetings, but I wonder if we couldn’t learn something from Pascal’s dictum that would relate to Masonry. Masons are social creatures: we wouldn’t come together in Lodge if we weren’t. We like to talk, we like arcane language, and we enjoy one another’s company. Given the social nature of our fraternity, a call to silence isn’t exactly normal. But I have to ask myself this: how much time do we spend cultivating silence? How much time to we spend training ourselves to listen attentively? If we are making noise, we cannot listen, whether it is to a single Brother in front of us, the Grand Lodge assembled in its annual communication, or our ritual during a degree. Silence well cultivated enables a man to be alone with his thoughts wherever he is, and Masonry necessarily calls us to cultivate high purpose in those thoughts. If we would learn, we must listen, and silence allows us to listen to ourselves.

And so I try to be silent when it’s appropriate, and to listen—really listen—to what matters. If I listen to a Brother doing ritual, I will better understand my response. By cultivating my own silence, I can better understand the meaning of Masonry, and can better focus on others. I can only fully be in this world when I pay attention to it. Being comfortably alone in a room enables me to reach beyond it, and embrace all the good the world has to offer. Masonry teaches many things, but common to them all is the need for balance. I need to be out in the world, but I also need to retreat from it. Only by doing both can I live the balanced life that enables me to really live the Craft. Only by being comfortably alone in my room can I comfortably live in the world among my fellows. Only by cultivating silence can I speak with any meaning, and live as the Craft calls me to live: with meaning, with honor, and with joy.

~MHS

R.W.B. Michael H. Shirley serves the Grand Lodge of Illinois, A.F. & A.M, as Leadership Development Chairman and Assistant Area Deputy Grand Master of the Eastern Area. A Certified Lodge Instructor, he is a Past Master and Life Member of Tuscola Lodge No. 332 and a plural member of Island City Lodge No. 330, F & AM, in Minocqua, Wisconsin. A Scottish Rite Mason, he is past Most Wise Master of the George E. Burow Chapter of Rose Croix in the Valley of Danville, AASR-NMJ; he is also a member of the Illinois Lodge of Research, the York Rite, Eastern Illinois Council No. 356 Allied Masonic Degrees, Eastern Star, Illini High Twelve, and the Tall Cedars of Lebanon.The author of several articles on British history, he teaches at Eastern Illinois University.You can contact him at: m.h.shirley@gmail.com