Silence — Shut Up and Listen
“As a long-time writer, an inveterate discursor, it is hard for me” he said.
“But the advice has come again and again.”
He pointed to the screen.
I raised the glasses on my nose and looked.
There were many lines there, each with a date. They were short, never more than maybe ten words. Often, as he said, they had a similar message: “Silence,” or its cousin “Quiet.” And the purpose seemed to be to listen.
“Fold my hands,” he said, his teeth tight as if it were an objectionable counsel, “and just receive.”
I’ve known him for years, and I have not known him to be receptive. When he is in a room, the room is full of noise. Often it is him, loudly sharing what he thinks. It’s OK with him if other people talk too. It will just not be quiet.
“What, I’m supposed to go to a Quaker meeting?”
I imagined him fidgeting on a folding chair, crossing and uncrossing his legs. He raised his cup and drank some of his cooling coffee, a long draught as though to clear his palate of the thought.
He did seem uncomfortable. “How did you get these…messages?” I asked, to give him a slightly new topic.
“I started doing a three-minute meditation thing. I’d heard about meditating — how good it is supposed to be for you. Figured I could not sit for twenty minutes or whatever they do — so when I heard this ex-Navy Commander suggesting a three-minute meditation, I went for it.”
I could not imagine him doing something someone else suggested. I hoped it did not show on my face. I asked, “What happens?”
“I get feelings. I guess you would call them that. And I write them down as if they were words. And then I get a feeling that I am or am not transcribing them right.”
“But do you listen?” I was surprised I was rude enough to ask, but now I was curious.
He smiled his famous crooked smile. For a moment he was disarmingly humble.
“We’re talking, and I’m here, am I not?” he said.