On having nothing to say

In recent Christmas letters many people have urged me to keep on writing for this blog. Why have I not written, for some months, I ask myself.

I could offer many reasons. For the last year I have been increasingly appalled by the state of the world, now dominated in so many ways by the would-be Caesar, Pope, and Nobel Laureate in the United States’ White House. (I refuse to call it ‘America’, knowing so many wonderful countries in the American continents.) The tragedies of Gaza (which we are not allowed to criticise, as that is now defined as anti-semitism), and of Ukraine, and Myanmar, and Syria, and … all seem beyond us. The very idea of ‘peace’ has been re-defined to a point of meaninglessness. What can one say?

Personally, I have experienced a sense of despair, when virtually anything I have said on these subjects, and others, is met with vicious comments and personal insults. Free speech is taken to mean the rights to attack a person’s integrity or intelligence, from a position of anonymity or lack of personal engagement, in so-called ‘social’ media.
Why bother?

Still, I keep on thinking, analysing, reading, and hoping. I keep dreaming of a better way and a better world. Incorrigible, I am; a dreamer. That for me is the best one can do, in an attempt to live in ‘faith’.

So, having spent a life-time speaking, teaching preaching, writing, it seems I am reduced to silence. I have nothing to say. I do not know to whom I might write or speak, or what I might write or speak, that would make any difference.

So I have been thinking about having ‘nothing to say’. I have remembered a statement of one who was a fellow-student of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a pastor and theologian who joined the German Resistance in World War 2. This person was impressed by Bonhoeffer’s silence: he would speak only when it was necessary, his colleague said. But when he did speak, or teach, or write, it was powerful and challenging, I say! In a similar way, a saying attributed to St Francis of Assisi remains with me: ‘Go into all the world and preach the Gospel: if necessary, use words.’

Having nothing to say is not just a matter of not speaking. There is a state of being reduced to silence, by force, domination, manipulative control, fear. That is not what I am writing about here.

There is always a danger in interpreting silence. Politicians often appeal to the ‘silent majority’, as if they know what the great majority of us want or think.

Having nothing to say can mean a positive stance, doing a number of things. One, which  was mentioned today while meeting with a friend, is the seemingly ever-present need in our society to find someone to blame. We are constantly needing to attack someone, usually in government or perceived status, to blame them for what we think should not have happened or their failure to do something we think they ought to have done. Keeping silent is for me often a matter of refusing to enter the blame game.

It is also a refusal to pretend there are simple or easy solutions to the complex situations or needs of our world, of people.

Keeping silent is also for me a matter of respect. It is an acknowledgement that there are many different views and values, and others have rights to theirs, without me needing to agree or disagree. I do not presume to know what drives or concerns others. I respect their rights, even when I may not see things as they do or value what they do. It they invited me into conversation, of course I would respond.

Having nothing to say is not for me a matter of withdrawal, abandoning hope and value. Rather, there is in this stance something of recognition, maybe affirmation, at least acknowledgement of reality, and with it perhaps a prayerful clasping of hands, in silence and even hope.

Perhaps it may even evoke a response, in silent community, or even words.

Responses are invited.