By: Jim Taylor

The couple sat next to me in the restaurant in Montreal. I guessed that they were old friends - both certainly qualified as old, and they sounded like people who had once been friends, but who had not met for a long time.
           She was very much an English speaker; he was very much a francophone. She chattered away in a noticeably English accent; he struggled to find the words he wanted in an unfamiliar language. Still, they held an animated conversation through the soup and salad, describing what had happened to their families over the years, how they were enjoying retirement, and what had happened to their spouses.
           By the time they got to the entrée, though, they didn't have as much to talk about. Their comments were more likely to be about the quality of the food or the service.
           By the time they got to dessert, an uneasy silence had settled between them.
           I don't quite know how one distinguishes between an uneasy silence and a companionable silence. On the surface, at least, silence is silence is silence, as Gertrude Stein might have quipped. But it isn't.
           There are comfortable silences. You're with someone whose company you enjoy enough that you don't have to keep a conversation going constantly. You can sit, staring into a fire. Or read books together, occasionally contributing a comment. Or lie side by side on a beach, saying nothing, just soaking up leisure.
           And there are uncomfortable silences. You don't know what to say. You don't know how to say it. Whatever you might say seems likely to fall into a pit of ignorance or disinterest. Every word you do say reveals that you no longer have anything in common with the other.
           And sometimes, the silence that feels comfortable for one person will feel awkward and unsettling for the other.
           That understanding might just illuminate the frustration I sometimes hear my friends express about their prayers.
           As a subject for chitchat, prayer probably occurs even less often than disclosures about sex or income. It's almost too personal. I've written in previous columns about my own prayer life, or lack of it, but from some responses I've received, I suspect that many today find God conspicuous by his or her absence. The familiar words and mantras they have used since childhood just don't seem to connect any more.
           Prayer starts to feel like leaving endless messages on voice mail, but never getting a call back.
           And yet I know that some of these same people are astonishingly well-adjusted in their lives, compassionate in their dealings with others, dedicated to worthwhile causes. They're certainly not drifting aimlessly like a shipwreck tossed about by a stormy sea.
           And I wonder if they're misconstruing the nature of the silence they experience. Maybe this is not the uncomfortable silence of not having anything to say. Maybe, from God's perspective, it's a companionable silence, where it's not necessary to say anything.

If you have comments or questions about Jim's column, write to him directly at jimt@quixotic.ca

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Copyright © 2007 by Jim Taylor. Non-profit use in congregations and study groups permitted; all other rights reserved.
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