I am sorry I missed the Silence discussion, too. I probably will reveal too much in this post, but I might as well since we cannot conceal even when we try. I read the book last year, so the following are more of my residual impressions than reference to specific textual events or narrative.
Any book where clergy or spiritual leaders wrestle with suffering and faith and God attracts my attention. What is is to give your life away to serving a being that seems so, well, silent? Deus absconditus. The absent God. The hidden God. In my experience, however, I find that doubt and hiddenness drive me to faith and revelation-- to the Ur of existence. It is the theology of the cross, to use a Lutheran theological category. To hide something is to reveal it. Why would God come in the most obvious and predictable anyway for only the high and mighty to see? Why not come via cross? Silence? To speak of God is only to get it wrong anyway, properly understood. And what is it, at least in the Christian tradition, that the God who creates becomes creature, and then suffers? Most of us avoid suffering; but who enters it when you do not have to? The cross, doubt, darkness all remain compelling reminders to me of God's presence. Pomp and circumstance, the glory of kings and presidents, powerful corporations and churches all remind me of evil and pride. Thus, God's problem: How do you convey you are a being of humility and compassion? To announce it calls attention to yourself, undermining who you essentially are (I am more humble than thou art). To not announce it is silent, yet true to character.
I don't know. I just think God seems to be more present where human beings say God is not; and God is less at where people seem to think God is. No wonder Jesus hung around the seemingly most apparently anti-god people of all (sinners!), since that is where God is most at work. True teachers find their deepest meaning and purpose among the ignorant, not the educated.
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This is kind of a response to both Carl and Nathan's posts. Yes, you guys imput was missed. Although we did have a good discussion with the five of us who made it.
When Richard gave me a synopsis of the book, it sounded as if the silence was the absence of God, but I think that the silence was more of space for R to play out his own free will in the presence of God. All of his questions of faith were questions he needed to answer himself for the answer to be an authentic act of faith. It is easy for someone to tell you what to believe after all, and quite another task to decide on your own. As came up at the Gingerman, all through the book he was comparing himself to the images of Christ he grew up with, as well as stories of the sainted martyrs . He was prepared to die a horrible death to prove his faith. But faith is a matter of belief, and the true martyrdom, I think, that occurred in Silence was his sacrifice of what he held the most dear: his faith. Through his sacrifice of his faith for the salvation of the tortured fellow prisoners he was able to put his faith into practice. Acts over words. Praxis: your beliefs inacted in your life.
Anyway, sorry you guys were not there.
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