Turner, G
Publisher: Bloomsbury Continuum (13 Sep 2012)
ISBN-10: 1441182233
ISBN-13: 978-1441182234
Hardcover: 224 pages
RRP: £16.99
RRP: £16.99
“I always think of silence as a flower bed out of which beautiful things
can grow... The flower bed in our age is full of weeds because of the chatter
that goes on all the time, but in a concert hall, the weeds are not there, it’s
one of the very few places in the West where you can experience profound
silence.”
This is not the appreciation of silence which is normally expected
from a professional musician at the Royal College of Music. Yet a composer,
conductor, instrumentalist and a singer require a profound understanding of
silence. There is a fundamental need to value moments of silence if music is to
make sense to its creators and its audience.
The Power of Silence: the
riches that lie within enables people and groups with whom most of us
rarely, if ever, come into contact, to reveal their appreciation of the
importance of silence. Staff and students of the Royal College of Music, the
Royal Academy of Dramatic Art, RADA, a psychotherapist, Trappist monks,
devotees of Transcendental Meditation, Quakers, a convicted murderer and the
Chief Rabbi are amongst the voices in the beautiful tapestry of silence
presented within the pages of this book. From the bustle and noise of
overcrowded Indian cities, Muslim, Buddhist and Hindu scholars speak of the
silence where they discover themselves, but, more importantly, find themselves
before God. Sometimes that means keeping silence for several years during which
there might be only occasional glimpses of that intimate encounter which makes
the self-sacrifice worthwhile.
Turner visits Gethsemane, the Trappist monastery made famous because
of Thomas Merton. There he finds busy people searching for that profound inner
silence which is both revelatory and life-changing. Far from being an
imposition, silence is both a thirst and a meeting-place between the human and
the Divine. He discovers the same quest in visiting a Coptic monastery in the
Egyptian desert. There he speaks to hermits who are so joy-filled that one
admits to having closed the windows and door of his room lest he disturb the
other monks by his shout of joy.
The Power of Silence
contains some startling contrasts. Turner shows how, through meditation and the
practice of Zen Buddhism, a group of varied individuals meeting in London and a
man serving a life sentence for murder within a Scottish prison have all transformed
their lives. The former murderer explained: “I now know that there is a purpose to my
life, which is to be the best possible human being I can be, and to treat
everyone as I would want to be treated myself. I am a completely different
person than [sic] the man who walked in through that prison door.” The ‘still
small voice’ of God slips into the silent self-emptying search for
self-understanding.
An equally touching interview in this book is where Turner interviews
a Christian and a Muslim in Beirut, both of them self-confessedly guilty of
multiple atrocities and yet now working for peace and reconciliation within and
between their own communities. Things changed when Christians and Muslims first
started to come together, sitting in silence and gradually searching for
understanding and reconciliation. “I couldn’t bring back to life all those who
were killed in battle with me, but I decided that I had to try to make sure
that such things never happened again in my country... A silent time gives a
person many advantages. It lights a candle in your dark spirit. It gives you a
space in which your spirit can renew itself.”
Turner quotes Jonathon Sacks, Britain’s Chief Rabbi: “God speaks in
silence. We have to create a silence in the soul so that we can hear Him listening
to us and speaking in a faint way... Modern life does not give us enough time
for silence. We have to listen to hear the music beneath the noise. That’s what
I think religious faith is about, the ability to hear the music beneath the
noise.”
Yet silence is not simply a religious need. In a fascinating chapter,
we hear from psychologists and counsellors of the importance of silence in
their work, where it is a tool and a process on the path towards reconciliation
and wholeness. We then move to the theatre and the vast psychological impact of
silence on the audience. Sir John Gielgud and Ralph Richardson were masters in
its employment and, as a teacher at RADA, explains, “The issue of silence is
always on the table... because actors are trading in silence as much as in
speech. From the moment a curtain goes up, they have to be attuned to silence
as well as words, so we spend a lot of time getting them to learn how to do
nothing and say nothing while they are on stage.”
The Power of Silence is a
journey towards a deeper realisation of the vital part which silence plays in
the lives of very different people. From start to finish, this is a book which
the author obviously enjoyed writing, but in which he also found more than
enough food for thought. Although Turner states quite openly that, in exploring
silence, he undertook many different types of journey, both geographically and
spiritually, there is also a sense that he learned much in the process and did
not start writing until he himself felt enriched by silence. Just as the book
repeats, time and again, that silence awaits ‘the right moment’ for its
breaking, so Turner reflected, presumably in silence, before starting to write.
By waiting for ‘the right moment’, he has produced something worth reading and
which will appeal to a wide audience.
Turner has worked for The
Scotsman, The Sunday Times, The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Telegraph. He was the BBC’s first Economics
correspondent. He has learned his craft. Thus The Power of Silence combines a friendly, personal tone with good
research and a sense of authority. Perhaps the contents of this book are best
summarised by a quote from one of the Coptic monks whom Turner interviewed in
Egypt: “We have a saying. ‘Shut down your mouth to let your heart talk and then
shut down your heart to let God speak.’ So it is lips, heart, God. If we don’t
speak in our hearts with God, then silence is nothing.” When I reached the last
page of The Power of Silence: the
riches that lie within, it was with genuine regret that I closed the book.
