To put all this in context, my pastor Carrie Lloyd undertakes a few days of ´noise´ fasting each year after having received much breakthrough doing it for an entire week in a monestary some years ago. This ´noise´ fast includes not using your vocal chords in any way (talking, singing, laughing out loud) and also, social media. Anything that you can do without (that doesn´t involve neglecting your responsibilities!) that creates actual or metaphorical ´noise.´ So I have Carrie to thank for inviting me and my fellow students to join her in this 4 day experience. It really was an invitation. Nobody forced us. But there was something significant about doing it together. As well as, at least in the school environment, having ´safety´ in numbers and not being the loon walking around doing it alone. That came later...

I have to say I had never considered a ´vow of silence´ before. I do fast food quite regularly and have done so over a number of years and so have some spiritual foundation on which to guage the potential insight that might come from such an undertaking. With food fasting you feel more connected to the ´unseen´ realm, less attached to ´earthly´ things. More aware of your reliance on (in this case) food! How dependant I was on God for every breath and continued life. I wondered if it would be the same with fasting the simple act of being able to talk. 

I don´t know how anyone else got on, I haven´t been in a position to ´debrief´ with anyone. But personally when I have a challenge in front of me, I tend to approach it quite positively and with a determined attitude. To me it seemed a realistic goal. Hence it wasn´t an option to break it because it was inconvenient or difficult. At the same time, I gave myself grace knowing that the odd noise or word would inevitably slip out by force of habit.

This it did! I noticed that the most frequent ´slip-ups´ were.. cussing! That´s right! Unexpected annoyances...like when the dog got under my feet in the kitchen (multiple times) and when I got in my car after it had been raining and I experienced an indoor shower (multiple times.) Yes folks, my car roof leaks quite badly! But I also was pleasantly surprised how often my mouth would open to begin to pray out loud or thank God for something or another... I do this a lot, when I am alone. When I am in company I do it in my head. This was the hardest part of the entire noise fast actually. Not being able to use my voice to express myself in prayer, praise and worship. And also just not being able to talk to myself...didn´t quite appreciate how often I do this!

In communal settings, I realized how often I wanted to just use any kind of vocal response (a guffaw, an uh-huh) to affirm something a speaker said. How I laughed silently in response to something funny. It is said for example that laughter is primarily a social phenomenon...it felt a bit strange just doing the physical shoulder shaking without the associated noises, but the outcome was the same. I still felt part of the whole. 

In one to one conversations I discerned how my facial expressions became bigger and my smile more intentional to put others at their ease and still show I was engaged with them. My eye contact became more intense and my physical contact more meaningful. A hug took on a greater quality because it was saying so much more. A smile became an entire sentence. A squeeze became prolongued.. you matter to me, I see you, I know you. 

My school week Mon- Weds was very busy and so, although I was in silence myself, I didn´t really experience much silence around me for the first 3 days. The ´busyness´ was the noise.  Also, we were in an environment where people were understanding and even supportive of what we were doing. So in all honesty, I didn´t find it all that hard the physical act of not talking. I even enjoyed having a great excuse not to have to talk or engage with people sometimes! Skipping the polite chit chat if you were tired or in a rush. 

It was however trickier in classes involving group discussions and interaction (as opposed to having a speaker or lecturer.) But knowing it was only temporary, and with people taking time to ´listen´ through my most significant thoughts being scribbled on bits of paper, it really wasn´t as frustrating as it might have been. 

I personally began to feel more of the tension / benefit on day 4. This was when our entire revival group came together and we sat in silence together for 2 hours, every half hour marked by Carrie turning a sand timer. 

It´s funny how people change. I see value in things now that I wouldn´t have a few years ago. I think I would have seen this as a complete waste of time back then. This time I was open to and even expectant what might happen and not feeling it was just a countdown to freedom. I really wanted to engage. This was my time to connect to the silence that thus far I had managed to avoid.

It´s amazing what can happen in your heart when you give it permission to ´just be.´ I´ve experienced it only a couple of times in my life...where every other source of entertainment is stripped away....once when I was walking alone in The Himalayas in Nepal, and another when I was walking the ´Camino de Santiago´ (The Way of St James) alone in the north of Spain. However it was probably only a matter of minutes before I met another hiker that I would end up chatting and hanging out with. One of my gifts is meeting random people really easily and forming effortless connection. However, in those very rare moments of being alone, I would start to cry. And I didn´t really know why. I couldn´t attribute it to any obvious reason. It was as though there were things buried deep down that I had never given time to process. But that my soul needed to express. 

So this time, I partnered with it and the Holy Spirit revealed some stuff to me about pain and dissapointments that I hadn´t allowed myself to feel or process and which was effecting my expectations of other people and of God himself. I won´t share the details but I am increasingly realizing the need to give your heart space, because it will always find a way to express itself. The question is whether this will be in healthy or non-healthy ways. 

I left that meeting feeling I had connected to some deeper level of myself and with God. So I went to the prayer chapel and continued reflecting. I cancelled my plans for the rest of the day. I decided I wanted to press in some more and so would continue with this ´vow of silence´ for a full week. I knew this would ´cost me´ a bit more...I´d have to venture into the ´outside´ world... put gas in my car, stock up on groceries, all things I had intentionally planned to avoid. I had already started feeling a bit weary of not being able to speak so I knew it would be a challenge being at social gatherings I had committed to for the weekend and stay the silent observer. Even writing or typing things down in response to questions is quite exhausting! But I really felt I was learning something along the way. About listening. About self-control. About what is really important.

Day 5 I continued, on my own little journey. I probably wouldn´t have had the guts to just decide to do this on my own steam. Upon reflection, what would prevent me from doing these sorts of things solo is the fear of how others would perceive me. That they would think I was just looking for attention, or form other negative judgments. But I actually realized I didn´t care any more what people would think of me. That was a revelation in itself. 

And here the comedy started.

Although, on one level it was surprisingly uneventful. I don´t know if this was a relief or a dissapointment! Shop assistants or strangers didn´t respond to me like I was a wacko when I held out my little bit of paper saying ´I can´t talk. I´m on a vow of silence.´ With a little bit of charades I paid for my gas and drove to the gym. I kept my head down, avoided eye contact with people where possible but inevitably had to show my little bit of paper to the instructors and to other staff or members who started chatting to me! The hot tub was a bit different. I checked it out from a distance, weighing up my options. With a bit of luck it would be empty. Who was in there? Dang, 3 people! Could I take my little bit of paper there with me? Would that be just a bit too weird?! I was going to avoid potential awkwardness by going in the kids hot tub which was indeed empty, until a friend saw me and called me over.

One side effect of not being able to talk is your dependancy on others to explain and somehow ´normalize´ what you´re doing. And boy do you appreciate people who take iniciative or who ask you yes / no questions instead of things you can´t possibly mime a response to! I started chuckling inside by this time, as everyone modified what they were saying and spoke to me with hand gestures and simplified language like I was deaf as well as mute! It was really quite an interesting social experiment! Once the others had left, I sensed my friends (understandable) awkwardness at making one-way conversation. She hinted it was a shame I was still on the silence as she´d have liked to properly talk. As would I. Should I break my silence? I decided to trust the process. And I gave her a long hug before she left, trying to communicate everything I wanted to say. I knew she was on her way to go and take care of her Mum who was sick. She had asked me to pray for her while she was gone. When I let go she looked at me and said ´you see. You don´t need to say anything. I know what you mean.´ 

I now have completed my 7 days. Since I last wrote I have somehow got through 2 more social gatherings, 2 trips to the gym, various ´nips´ to stores and co-leading an outreach in a Redding neighbourhood that involved .. you´ve got it, talking to people! By being able to do less myself, I somehow empowered the people I was leading more. And I also experienced a frutrating evening giving 3 people rides home without being able to strategize and hence ending up driving a very inefficient (ie longer, more expensive etc) route which took up more time than it needed to, when it was already late and I had school the next day. The lack of control I had in this situation added to the fact I didn´t have internet data for GPS meant I was completely in the hands of others to communicate / organize among themselves and with me. That was particularly hard beingan ultra-efficient person tending to take the lead in such occassions. The truth is perhaps my limited attempts to communicate complicated the situation more than if I had completely surrendered to someone else taking the lead.

Surrender is so interesting. I may not have managed it very well that night, in fact I went to bed bed super frustrated which ironically led to me not sleeping at all well - but I have learnt more about surrender over the course of this noise fast than I have over a long period of ´normal´ life. I surrendered to not being able to communicate every thought, every annoyance, every idea, every nuance. I also quickly learnt to chose what I communicated using other means, simply because it takes so much effort and time to do so! I weighed how important my words really were. I had to trust people more and, I realized that things don´t fall apart because of others not receiving the fullness of my oh-so-valuable contributions! Also, I surrendered to not having to explain or defend myself.

I have to say the last 2 or 3 days were much more frustrating simply because of the logistics of normal life, and by now I am so ready to be able to have conversations with people again! I may not have had any angelic visions or earth-shattering experiences, but it has definitely been beneficial. I will miss the seclusion and discipline of it in an odd way. It has made me more determined to carve out quiet time and stillness. And I will definately be checking facebook a lot less, especially before bed.

Perhaps because I tend to be quite a ´busy´person, I found that it was the silence around me that created space, not necessarily the fact that I couldn´t talk myself. However, not speaking connected me to the silence and even to become that stillness when I was physically around other ´noise´. All in all, I have become more aware of my ´inner world´ which I hope and pray will `produce ´outward´ fruit.