Over the past few years, I had many experiences of silent retreats as humanity took shelter from what I always call the “manufactured pandemic” that held our world captive. Not all bad, in some ways, I had the opportunity to reflect on the power of silence and subsequent responses elicited from people. Some embrace silence and I am one of them. However, the retreat experience, dominated by silence, reminded me of all that people keep bottled up inside and find difficult to share, with anyone.

We all have friends who bond over similar family struggles, feeling shocked and hurt by what others have had to endure. There is some element of solace in that shared pain and we often wonder why it takes us so long to open up. These experiences are not uncommon. Even with family and close friends, we mindfully leave out important details, or refrain from sharing certain experiences altogether and escape to our silent, mental, escape room.

There are those many things we don’t talk about. On social media, at dinner parties or in private conversations with friends. At least most of us don’t. The truths and experiences we keep hidden are like hand-written notes, safely tucked away between pages of a book that we will never read again. The potential healing available in silence and being with our difficult thoughts is not always pleasant or comfortable and this is one of the reasons that many people avoid sharing with others. Using silence, both positively and negatively, when we communicate can influence our relations. Many of us have that fear of not being validated and can usually recognize the difference between a disapproving silence and that which confirms that what we are saying is truly being listened to by others.

By sharing only what feels appropriate, safe, comfortable or absolutely necessary, we dilute the vulnerability and intimacy that is integral to our survival, concealing those human frailties that have the power to connect us beyond our physical, cultural, social and other distinctions. This makes us all alone together, each holding onto something that could be used to build a bridge between us. Yet, there is so much space.

We keep things to ourselves because we want to preserve our sense of self. Because we need to maintain our place in the world and feel a sense of safety. Because we want to protect the people we love. We keep things to ourselves for fear of judgement and rejection. Because we are not ready to confront or bear the consequences of our own truths. What we don’t talk about makes homes inside of us, growing like weeds in the garden of our memories. Sometimes, they keep us up in the middle of the night and manifest as physical pain. We end up paying a price for what should be released, our peace of mind, our well-being and our capacity to share love. Our greatest fear lies in being seen for who we truly are. If we truly see each other, we are exposed, less in control and definitely more vulnerable. Saying that we are well helps us to avoid the reality of the present moment, something oddly comforting, and it is self-preservation.

It is clear that silence has power, along with being the absence of noise.. Like any power it can be used to hurt or to heal and perhaps this is why people respond so variably to it. For some people silence means loneliness, isolation or awkwardness. It can be used to indicate emotional withdrawal, disapproval or even punishment. In our language the word silence is often used with negative connotations; a conspiracy of silence, being given the silent treatment, lifting the veil of silence. In our busy, noisy world many people seem to fear silence.

We all dream about different realities, a world where truths can be shared, where friends can tell each other they are feeling defeated, sad, anxious or alone, without worrying about what the others may think, things people really should talk about but nobody wants to do so. Holding back our truths can be so much more harmful than sharing them. When we avoid being real, we contribute to a distorted reality. We cannot heal wounds if we fail to acknowledge them and, in the process, we end up with a difficult time accepting each other. Siblings and friends with decades of hurt that has lingered between them, so much so, that the idea of reaching out feels impossible. One can be surrounded by people, belong to an organization, yet still feel so deeply alone. It’s doubtful that we can transform loneliness by simply being together, sharing space and meaningful conversations.

Honesty and unconditional love where communication is concerned can help us find our way back to ourselves and each other. Build bridges that reconnect us with those we love and create space for others to do the same.

From the Writer’s Workshop: What does nobody want to talk about, but really should?

A very long time ago, I prepared to graduate from 8th grade in parochial school, completing several years of a fairly regimented, religious, curriculum commandeered by the nuns who led the educational charge. Breaking from their rather rigid traditions, the nunnery agreed to have both the graduating classes have a yearbook, of sorts. Mind you, this was not a combined effort, no no, the boy and girl classes were kept separate for the educational duration, each on opposite sides of the school building. The exception was kindergarten, where a mixing of the genders was allowed.

In any event, below my photograph in the small yearbook, was kind of a generic notation, Bound to be a Writer, while the other 49 students in the class (yes, 49!) all had these cutesy little comments under their pictures. It didn’t matter much, I was soon to leave for parochial high school and the future looked bright ahead. Or so I thought but, that’s a long story for another day.

For some reason, the thought of being a writer always stayed with me but I never really understood if it was just something randomly tossed out by Ms. Perfect who was the class favorite and in charge of the yearbook. Did she actually see me in a specialized light and feel that I had some future potential? Part of me felt that being a writer would be daring while my initial desires and ambitions for the future were completely apart of sitting behind a typewriter, pencil stuck against my ear and a big yellow lined pad of paper with notes which I felt important to share at some point.

I did end up behind a typewriter, in an office, where I engaged in day-to-day repetitive tasks in a confined, windowless, atmosphere. Looking back, I kept wondering if being in this environment was my future or did I dare get the hell outta that place while time was still on my side. I honestly felt that the 1965 hit song by The Animals was written just for me.

All of these uncertainties and fears found their way to pages in a bunch of black and white notebooks kept under my bed. Much like keeping a diary, I wrote in them constantly and there was usually a closing sentence from me to me advising to get out and find something else, written pleas to move forward to anywhere but where I was. By putting my pen to paper, I was definitely following through with being a writer of sorts even though I allowed life to misdirect me along the way. Somehow, I came to realize that, with each waking day, there were more chances for stories to be told.

Growing up, I quickly learned that things in life were either funny or tragic but realized they are almost always both. We can all find the sad in things that are funny, most jokes are based on what’s broken, the old, the fat, the clueless, the outsider, the desperate, the bad. It is so much harder to find the funny in what is sad and my writing patterns have, at times, managed to unearth it. Once life was easy to laugh at, even at its worst, now, it’s damn hard. And it goes way deeper than just politics.

There was a time, way back before 9/11/01 where people seemed willing to consider innocence before guilt. Not anymore. Quick judgements flood down like a rainstorm and guilt steps in before innocence has a chance and, if it is contemplated, it’s often accompanied by regret for actions already taken in the name of guilt. We all know the script, from Muslims in 2001 onto to Asians when Covid made its appearance and now it’s Jews, because of Gaza. Let’s face it people, being Muslim was not what made those men bombers any more than being Chinese causing the pandemic or being Jewish causing the Gazan tragedy. It just does not matter. Generalized hatred has become habitual and now it is has turned into an epidemic of easy.

Think about how it was once the fringes of society who looked toward hate for relief from their own misery and powerlessness. The underclass needing an underdog. Today, it seems that everyone feels entitled to behave badly even what they are looking at…is in a mirror. It’s difficult, almost impossible, to imagine a ceasefire emerging from the trenches of hate that flank today’s no mans’s land of despair and discord.

God’s good grace might go a long way in making us what we once were and long to be again. There was a time I would have kept these thoughts locked away in a stack of marble notebooks, now I feel we need to accept the sobering reality of life at present. My own reality is that someone saw my potential, sixty-seven years ago. My predicted yearbook path to writing has come to fruition, in some small way.