She Said Nothing, So I Killed Her ….
….then nothing was said ..
A murderer once said to me … “She said nothing … so I killed her, so nothing was said”. This statement made me think about the power of silence and how we experience it. Here are my thoughts:
“The dumb silence of apathy, the sober silence of solemnity, the fertile silence of awareness, the active silence of perception, the baffled silence of confusion, the uneasy silence of impasse, the muzzled silence of outrage, the expectant silence of waiting, the reproachful silence of censure, the tacit silence of approval, the vituperative silence of accusation, the eloquent silence of awe, the unnerving silence of menace, the peaceful silence of communion and the irrevocable silence of death Illustrate by their unspoken response to speech that experiences exist for which we lack the word”. – Leslie Kane (1984)
For me, the sacredness of silence, I have come to recognise, has more often than not been experienced away from and outside of the environments commonly associated with prayer, contemplation, adoration and reflection. Yes, I love the early first hours of each new day, the closing hours of darkness and daily visits to the Blessed Sacrament, but these occasions are relatively short to what unfolds hour by hour in my daily work.
For the majority of each day I am in constant dialogue and relationship with others. The context of a Police station, a court room, probation office and a prison wing, is one of immense business, the noises of distress, internal and external conflicts, negotiations, relief and … the list goes on. I guess the same can be said about many different working environments including yours.
But of course, sacredness and its many manifestations of silence is to be found in all of these places, experiences and contexts and is not limited to the cloister, church or chapel.
My awareness that silence and its sacred contents did not come from known holy saints, priests or spiritual directors. My eyes and heart were opened to silence by the very first prisoners and offenders I met and by others who worked with them.
In the early days of my forensic training, I was privileged to be taught by Consultant Psychotherapist, Dr Murray Cox. Murray was also a Shakespearian scholar and integrated his immense knowledge fully into his clinical thinking at Broadmoor. He inspired me as no other, to understand silence as one of the most meaningful communications and introduced me to the work of Kane as quoted above.
Murray died many years ago now. I continue to be reminded of him daily as I now consult to younger clinicians, police and probation officers helping them to develop ways of being with people who often no other wants to be with. When seeking to support them in this challenging task, it is not unusual for them to express relief and delight because their client is talking about his or her offence with great ease “He’s doing very well Stephen, he talks about his offence all the time”. My response is seldom one of joy. In this situation I am only too mindful of one client who declared; “She said nothing….. So, I killed her, then nothing was said”.
This powerful statement on silence enabled me to recognise that when a client, tells their story easily, this usually signifies that it is not the part of the story that needs to be told. Casual telling, always indicates that there is story, a much earlier story, that the client may not be able to bear to tell at all. It is this story that needs to be told and it is this story, if no more people are to be killed, that needs to be heard.
We all have stories that need to be told and we all need silence in which to tell them. Silence alone can take us beyond our initial telling. Beyond the story what we first tell ourselves, others and God. It is this story that needs silence to emerge in its fullness, no matter what it sounds like and no matter what it holds. Even our untold stories can have a murderous effect.
The importance of allowing and staying with silence is not only crucial for my forensic clients but is also crucial for us all. We can all move through the day being more aware of the many communications within silence. Not only we will start to hear the important untold in our own stories, but a myriad of other communications will also open up to us in the lives of others. The sacredness of this process can of course happen in all the places we have been conditioned to consider ‘holy’ and in many other places, equally ‘holy’, but outside of our conditioning. Perhaps, even more often than we allow ourselves to notice, the sacredness of silence happens and is happening in the groundedness of our untold stories, in the fullness of life and in all its glorious noisy mess and messy places …
But first I guess we have to learn to shut the fuck up!
Br. Stephen Morris FCC
