I stood before the room of officers and asked them to share
a moment of silence with me. We were in
the aftermath of the shooting of five police officers in Dallas. I have been at muster before, spoken my peace
in the past, but this was the first time I asked for the moment of
silence. And it was entirely appropriate
to the moment. Yes, police lose their
lives, it is part of ‘the job’, but not this many, this suddenly, these men hunted
down and killed for the color of their skin.
I asked for a moment of silence.
This is one of those things in life that can be thought
about ahead of time. Not everybody needs
to do that. I know plenty of people who
jump right into the moment of silence.
They have their focus, they know their drill, they take the time as it
is offered. I am one of those people
that, if a moment is offered, by the time I get my head around to what I would
do in the silence, the moment has passed by.
Not sure how well that reflects on this fellow who claims to work for the
Lord. These moments are stock in trade
to what I do. It is straightforward when I lead them. I know what I am going to
be asking for. And, as the timekeeper, I
will admit that a part of my focus is on the structure of the ‘moment
of silence’, not always deeply in the moment of silence.
No, this is for those times when a moment of silence is
called for, it is entirely appropriate to the moment, but it feels like I am
metaphorically opening my mouth and not knowing what to say. I am opening my heart and not knowing where to
go.
Working for Jesus, the moment of silence is a moment of
prayer. I prefer to say the prayer out
loud, because I am uncomfortable with silences and because much of my job comes
from what I say. I can preach it or pray
it out loud pretty well, so I am told.
And people invite me back so...
But a lot of times, the moment of silence is the
substitution for the openly religious prayer so that we can be sensitive to
people who 1. Are of other faith traditions and 2. May not be of a faith
tradition at all. It is designed to be
respectful of people of different belief systems. Some believe more negatively, that it panders
to nonbelievers.
Maybe that is where I get stuck. The moment of silence is asked for and my
brain goes into a categorizing mode. Is it
silence ‘Jesus-time’? Is it an interfaith silence? Are we doing the moment because we do not
know what else to do?
Notice what is missing from this rather circuitous
discussion? It is what should be the
common thread for consideration of the ‘moment of silence’. That is answering the question ‘what is the
moment for’? I am coming to the belief that is
our way in to answering the question of what we do with ‘a moment of silence’ is not with the head,
but with the heart.
Do not seek mental
words to fill the silence. Rather, let
emotion fill the silence, as raw and powerful as you can muster. This happened at the calling for the moment of
silence following the Dallas murders.
In that moment, the heart-felt answer to ‘what is the moment of
silence for’ was not directly for the families of the officers killed in
Dallas. That may sound cold, but
understand, prayers and thoughts for those families were very much a part of my
prayer-life before and after I was at muster.
In that moment, looking into the faces of the officers about to go out
onto the streets, both experienced and in training, that moment of silence was
a plea for their protection. It answered
a raw fear in my gut that some copycat might decide to do something stupid here
in my City.
As I thought about this, memories of the moments of silence for 9/11 came to me. Two images answer ‘what is the moment of silence for’. One is a memory tape that runs in my head of
watching a plane slam into one of the towers.
Saw it live on television. The
other was an image from later on, that of first
responders carrying out the body of Rev. Mychal Judge, NYFD
Chaplain, killed in the attack. The heart response to that moment of silence is ‘this is why I serve’.
What do you do with the moment of silence? Let the emotions find expression (I want to
say ‘let the emotions speak’ but this is silence we are talking about). In other words, don’t think, feel. Let the feeling form your response. It might surprise you.
And if it feels like a pain is going to burst out of
your chest, by God, talk to someone about it!
Chaplain’s Rule #1: A tear is okay to shed in the moment of
silence.
