The Sound of Silence

 

Silence:noun 

1. absence of any sound or noise; stillness. 

2. the state or fact of being silent; muteness. 

3. absence or omission of mention, comment, or expressed concern:the conspicuous silence of our newspapers on local graft. 

 “Silence” is a powerful word. The first definition that usually appears in dictionaries describes it as the absence of sound or noise. Despite its literal meaning, “silence” seems to be a favorite word among song writers. Music is our highest form of noise. Music is organized noise. Carefully chosen frequencies that form wordless poems. How ironic it is then that we actually sing the word frequently. It seems like a word that should be impossible to raise in song. Yet it is a common word in hymns and spirituals. Something about singing the word “silence” feels sacred. We can feel the power of the word, when each year at Christmas, choirs and congregations sing “Silent night. Holy night.” I imagine this type of silence as a beautiful act of reverence. Meditative. Silent like a Quaker or Buddhist. Prayerful. And yet in song, the word almost always appears in a context that conjures nighttime or darkness. Or the silence of a tomb. 

 In Simon and Garfunkel’s poetically oxymoronic “Sound of Silence”

the word is used as described in the dictionaries third meaning: absence or omission of mention, comment, or expressed concern. This is the silence of Elie Wiesel’s famous quote: “I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.” In the popular song and in Wiesel’s powerful words, the concept of silence feels as sacred as it does in the Christmas hymn. And even though it is being used to mean something completely different, it is also still closely associated with darkness or night. There is a darkness that has settled upon the United States of America over the last several years. It is an ancient darkness. Familiar like an old friend as Paul Simon refers to it in his song written during another dark period in our country’s recent history. It is this type of darkness that is currently occupying my thoughts and its relationship with silence. 

 In the opening line of “Sound of Silence” Paul Simon greets the darkness fondly. The darkness has not come to him, he has sought it out. “I’ve come to talk with you again.” It makes me think about the comfort that we can find in the darkness of ignorance. Just getting through each day in this life can be difficult and it is tempting to retreat into the peacefulness of a kind of intellectual nighttime. We take refuge from worldly concerns in a tent and cover ourselves in a canvas of complacency. I think that most of us give in to the temptation of this type of retreat from truth at times. Although, many people take sanctuary in that silent place and pretend that there is no noise in the world. I’m afraid that too many of my fellow Americans have so effectively cocooned themselves away that they completely missed the alarm bells of tyranny that have been ringing out a warning ever since Donald Trump came riding down the escalator from his penthouse in Trump Tower. They told those of us who had seen the danger ahead and felt the need to broadcast our concerns that we were being too political. “Please”, they posted, “I just want to see kitty-cat videos.” They called our social media posts “rants.” They just wanted to go about their lives. They said they did not have time for politics. They could not break free from the comfort of silent complacency, so they told themselves that the dangerous rhetoric of our President was nothing to worry about. 

 I read post after post about how sick my Facebook friends were of politics. But I was not writing about politics. I was speaking truth in an effort to counter the culture of lies and alternative facts being fostered by an administration hellbent on attaining absolute power. We could not sit silently by and let the Trump family establish a new kind of tacky aristocracy. Donald Trump and his sons were preaching the gospel of vulgarity, hate, and divisiveness. They were taking counsel from dark and sinister characters like Stephen Miller, Steve Bannon, and Roger Stone. They successfully tapped into the worst fears and prejudices of most of white America. They were gaining acolytes that saw political advantage in aligning themselves with Trump and his lies. These apostles embraced the lies and began to evangelize as prophets of the false theology of white victimization and white grievance. And all the while, too many ignored it all. They begged us to remain silent. They just wanted the sound of silence. They wanted to talk without speaking. They wanted to listen without hearing. And they decided that truth just was not that important. And so, the silent raindrops fell, and echoed in the wells of silence. Their foolish silence allowed hatred, fear, and meanness grow like unchecked cancer until it tore at the very tissue and vital organs of our democracy. 

 May our eyes all be stabbed by the flash of a neon light. And may the naked light lift away the veils that we have shrouded ourselves in. May it expose the fraudulence of the talk show radio hosts, the Fox News fearmongers, and the evilness of a sociopathic President. May it allow us to see the existential necessity of speaking truth to power. And may it render us incapable of remaining silent. Let us raise our voices in the truthful noise of songs of freedom and Justice and Peace and truth. I pray that the MAGA inspired militias stand down, that our tradition of peaceful transfer of power is not further interrupted, and that we begin the hard work of reconciliation. 

 “Hello darkness, my old friend 

I've come to talk with you again 

Because a vision softly creeping 

Left its seeds while I was sleeping 

And the vision that was planted in my brain 

Still remains 

Within the sound of silence 

In restless dreams I walked alone 

Narrow streets of cobblestone 

'Neath the halo of a streetlamp 

I turned my collar to the cold and damp 

When my eyes were stabbed by the flash of a neon light 

That split the night 

And touched the sound of silence 

And in the naked light, I saw 

Ten thousand people, maybe more 

People talking without speaking 

People hearing without listening 

People writing songs that voices never share 

And no one dared 

Disturb the sound of silence 

"Fools", said I, "You do not know 

Silence like a cancer grows 

Hear my words that I might teach you 

Take my arms that I might reach you" 

But my words, like silent raindrops fell 

And echoed In the wells of silence 

And the people bowed and prayed 

To the neon god they made 

And the sign flashed out its warning 

In the words that it was forming 

And the sign said, 

"The words of the prophets are written on the subway walls 

And tenement halls" 

And whispered in the sound of silence” 

 Paul Simon, at age 21