Nine Kinds of Silence

Silence is essential for human health, mentally, physically, and spiritually. Study after study indicates that there are physiological and psychological implications to excessive noise and that silence can create a sense of well-being and creativity. Noise can create stress in other animals, on land and in water, and we might assume that silence benefits them as well.

There are plenty of passages in scripture which silence is the fertile place for communion with God and key figures are attuned to the Creator when they are in solitude and away from the hustle and bustle of human-made sounds. Elijah and Moses and Jesus are the obvious examples. But what about Hagar when she is sent into the wilderness? In her desperate silence God comes to her.  Paul had his sojourn in the desert as well, a rather mysterious period before he began his hectic missionary activity.  



Paul Goodman

Recently I read about Paul Goodman's Nine Kinds of Silence for the first time. I'd never heard of Goodman before, but he was an  American sociologist, poet, writer, anarchist, public intellectual & gay-rights activist who was influential in the 1960's. I am intrigued by his categories particularly the silence of peaceful accord with other persons or communion with the cosmos. This resonates with many of those biblical stories and my own experience. 


Paul Goodman Nine Kinds of Silence 

Not speaking and speaking are both human ways of being in the world, 
and there are kinds and grades of each. 
There is the dumb silence of slumber or apathy;
 the sober silence that goes with a solemn animal face; 
the fertile silence of awareness, pasturing the soul, whence emerge new thoughts; 
the alive silence of alert perception, ready to say, “This… this…”; 
the musical silence that accompanies absorbed activity; 
the silence of listening to another speak,
 catching the drift and helping him be clear; 
the noisy silence of resentment and self-recrimination, 
loud and subvocal speech but sullen to say it; 
baffled silence; 
the silence of peaceful accord with other persons or communion with the cosmos.

What do you think about these forms of silence?