Going Quiet

Before getting on a cross-country bus tour with 26 other people whose homes are hotel rooms in the vast urban sprawl that surrounds cities as varied as Minneapolis and Malibu, my partner and I lived with about 80 other people in a little mountain village called Holden in the North Cascades. Though the two experiences both offer deep learning about what it means to be in community, there are some major differences. Holden, for example, being situated literally in the middle of a wilderness area, is a whole lot quieter. There are no phones there, no television networks or ring tones. At night, after a full day of work at the hydroelectric plant or the compost piles or the kitchen, people return to their rooms in huge old chalets and the valley hushes. Occasionally, as part of our daily communal worship, we would walk to the creek that wound through ‘town’ and listen for the word of the Divine in the sound of the water going over rocks. Even our songs and shouts of greeting were muffled by the endless silence of mountains standing all around us.

Noise has been one of the hardest things for Allison and me as we’ve moved from Holden to the ‘outside world.’ Semis passing on the highway, twelve different phone conversations when we step into a restaurant, sirens of all kinds that always make us feel as if we need to jump up and report for fire brigade duty, which is the only explanation for sounds as piercing and horrible at Holden.

Maybe that’s why this morning at Yellowstone Baptist College was so powerful for me. Our vigil the day before had been difficult––the school’s refusal to engage in dialogue, weather, the occasional hostile passerby. Yesterday had been raw and challenging, a clear picture of what we’re up against as activists when so much of the Christian community isn’t ready to accept the reality that LGBT people have been created good. Today, we wanted to come to campus with the intention of honoring what was beautiful about our time there. We decided on a shorter vigil and we decided on silence. We wanted to reaffirm our loving intentions for YBC and its students in a way that would open a space for the Spirit to continue her work. In silence, in single file, we walked from the bus to the gates of the school. In silence, we faced the school and opened our hearts to our hopes for change.

As I prayed for guidance about what could move YBC and the Equality Ride out of our present impasse, I thought of Jesus and the clarity he brought in situtations where church doctrine was crowding out God’s good intentions for humankind. I thought of Earth, how she teaches that it is our interrelatedness that makes us whole. In silence, the two teachers brought me to a place of peace and as I imagined the hearts of my fellow riders filling the way mine was, I was grateful. Grateful for truthspeaking in bad weather. Grateful for quiet. Grateful for schools where LGBT students will someday see their hopes for change fulfilled.

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