the friend online
03 October 2008

The poetry of silence and the prose of action

‘…We seek a gathered stillness in our Meetings for Worship so that all may feel the power of God’s love drawing us together and leading us.’

Can silence draw the crowds? A recent exhibition of work by the Danish painter Vilhelm Hammershøi shows it can. Over and over again he explored the theme of quiet interior spaces, rendering them in subtle greys, blues and white. Often there is a single human figure quietly busy at some task. You can almost hear the drawing of breath. All very Quakerly you might think. And rather ironic perhaps that crowds were drawn to look at these still scenes, to listen to the ‘poetry of silence’, the title of the exhibition.

The Quaker Pierre Lacout wrote: ‘In silence which is active, the Inner Light begins to glow – a tiny spark… It is by an attention full of love that we enable the Inner Light to blaze… and to make of our whole being a source from which this Light may shine out.’

Yet what is heard in the silence, in the poetry, may be unsettling. When I visited the exhibition recently I heard a voice say: ‘I can’t cope with any more loneliness’. It can take courage to face the silence and what we hear in it.

If silence is one of the hallmarks of the Quaker way what makes it such a light-filled place is friendship. It is in the gathering of Friends that the silence becomes poetic, and here I think of poetry as truth-telling, a poetry of word or image or action which takes us beyond what we know to some new glimpse of ourselves and of the world in which we are set.

The Scottish poet Douglas Dunn, writing of friendship among poets, spoke of that ‘talking in whispers in crowded bars, suspicious enough to be taken for love’. The sharing of silence among friends is indeed an act of love.

And out of the poetry of silence comes the prose of action. Out of the friendship comes a love for the world and an eagerness that it should become all that it can be. In the words of early Quaker William Penn: ‘true godliness don’t turn men out of the world but enables them to live better in it and excites their endeavours to mend it.’

Kevin Franz is general secretary of Quaker Peace & Social Witness, a department of Britain Yearly Meeting.

Quaker Peace & Social Witness

Pierre Lacout quote

William Penn quote

Vilhelm Hammershoi

Douglas Dunn

Kevin Franz

Comments:

Nicholas Paton Philip, 05 October
I felt very attuned what you have talked about in the article, Kevin. It was partly the role that the arts can play in highlighting important Quaker principles as well the sentiment you were expressing about silence, being alone and the power of community within meeting for worship. I am a relatively new attender and am enjoying my journey of discovery as to what being a Quaker means to me yet in relationship with others. I consider that we live in exciting times and that Quaker outreach week is an opportunity to engage with our wider communities.



 


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Dear visitor
Judy Kirby, editor, the Friend
The poetry of silence and the prose of action
Kevin Franz
The spiritual path for me?
Ron Kentish
What about Hitler?
Geoffrey Carnall
Why I came to the Meeting house
Sibyl Ruth
Why I love Meeting for Worship
Bob Johnson
Recharging our Quaker batteries
Harriet Hart
Loving the Spirit of the Age
Laurie Michaelis
Give Jesus a promotion!
David Boulton
Jesus and me
Paul Oestreicher
Restorative justice
Marian Liebmann
‘Our Lives’: working in disadvantaged communities
Rowena Loverance
Conciliation behind the scenes
Oliver Robertson
Far more than pacifism
Rosemary Hartill
On being a Quaker artist
Rowena Loverance
q-eye
eye@thefriend.org

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