Yes, we’re called a silent meeting. But there’s silence and, well, then there’s silence. As nuns would tell parochial school students at the beginning of chapel, “Quaker meeting has begun, no more talking or chewing gum.” Who knows where that originated, much less why certain people – such as the priest – might be considered exempt. Let me declare, I know of no authentic silence. Nowhere on this planet! (Outer space, maybe? Deafness?) Even when we have no spoken messages arising in our worship, we still have the pulses of breathing, to say nothing of the clock, with its measure annoying some and reassuring others. Waves of restlessness, late arrivals, and traffic and sirens along Central Avenue, too. In summer, birds and crickets. Maybe a bagpiper at the edge of the cemetery. In winter, the furnace kicking on, children murmuring, a cough or sneeze. A coat crackling as it’s taken off or put back on.
There’s even silent noise arising in stray thoughts. Imagined lists of things to do. Recollections of things done in the previous week or decades earlier. News reports echoing through our minds. Sometimes, rain. Or simple wind. Maybe “stilled” is a more accurate description than “silent” or even “unprogrammed.”
Yes, I’ve heard stories of city dwellers who come to the countryside and are soon troubled by its relative quiet. I have to chuckle, realizing how much they miss. I think of a meeting for worship one May morning along Broadway in upper Manhattan, when I heard little else outside the room but birdsong, countered a week later in rural Ohio by loud farm tractors and semi-trailer rigs. Remember, too, a few Mays before that, when the kids came into the meeting room, saying that the boom heard a little earlier was Mount St. Helens exploding. Their classroom faced the west and the volcano eighty miles away, with its inky squall line soon blotting out the noontime sun.
What we have, of course, is a practice of acute listening, capable of detecting far-off explosions as well as the motions of the heart. What we enter is not silence exactly but something I often find more akin to swimming underwater. Something that can be calming, peaceful, refreshing, renewing, good – as in good to eat, too. Filling. “Has thou been fruitful?” as they used to say.
My description of what we have is QUIETIST worship, rather than “silent” or “unprogrammed.” Hushed, still, clearing, typically peaceful, not showy, and unobtrusive being a few of its earmarks. Though this hardly covers the experience, either.
Jnana's Red Barn 
I didn’t know Quakers didn’t hire preachers… The thought of how difficult silence is to find is true. I’ve been in touch with a few people through the blogosphere who talk about meditating. Completely clearing your mind is hard to do.
There is value in silence, though, most definitely. I would have a hard time relating to someone who had trouble with quiet. We need that. I think the Quakers are onto something.
For whatever (mysterious) reason, meditating is often easier when done with other committed individuals. Somehow, the calmness multiplies, like candles in a dark room.
One of the things I find is that sitting together quietly takes us closer to our intuition and conscience, and that by laying aside our usual mental “busy-ness,” solutions often appear in an unexpected flash. It’s been said that some of the best barns in New England were designed in Quaker meeting.
You are definitely right: we need quiet in our lives, especially in the all-too-noisy world we face today.
With others? Hmm. I’d never heard that suggested before. Thank you for the advice and kind response. I’m really enjoying your site.
This is perennially a favorite topic for me. I have found that “stilled” worship incites creativity in me. Many of my blog posts come out of this silence and many silences are enhanced by testimony coming from thoughts surrounding posts. It seems an enigma that silence can be “deepened” by testimony unless you have experienced it.