When God Is Silent (Lyman Beecher Lectures on Preaching)
Barbara Brown Taylor’sWhen God is Silentis a gem of a little book. The Lyman Beecher Lectures she gave at Yale in 1997 are presented in an attractive new format from Cowley Publications which suggests that one has picked up something of an art book, something to be cherished. It is a little book both in size and in the scope of the author’s intent—but on handling and browsing through it, the reader become immediately conscious of an economy whose very modesty speaks its worth. . . .From the threads of ordinary experiences which we all can recognize, Taylor weaves something that gives voice to what we have not quite been able to say for ourselves, but something to which we find ourselves giving a deep interior assent. . . . The journey of just 130 small pages is a rich labyrinth of meditations—on music and silence, on the statistics of our broken world, on the imagination, on the writings of mystics both ancient and modern—all of them serving as gathering places for poetry and insight, reflection and prayer. . . .This book should not be left to preachers alone; it is a handbook for those who hear the whisper of God and want to listen. It is a book about the fragility of our words and the depth of God’s silence—and it is ultimately a book about the music that results from the crashing of our words against that silence of God to carry on its very failure some of the song of God’s own music. (Rev. Bruce Jenneker, Trinity Church )Barbara Brown Taylor’s concise, pithy and challenging prose is evidence that she is practicing what she preaches: that Christian pastors take more care with the words they use and treat language with economy, courtesy and reverence. . . .All too often, Taylor insists, Christians are part of the problem rather than people who offer an alternative. It isn’t simply that the jargon of psychobabble is working its way into worship, but something deeper: a lack of trust in the essential mystery of God’s word. . . .If Taylor is eloquent in describing our misuse of language, she is even more eloquent when meditating on the value of silence, on ‘the game of divine hide and seek [which is] part of God’s pedagogy . . . [making] silence a vital component of God’s speech.’ She offers concrete and practical suggestions for ways to improve our relationship with both silence and the words God has given us. (Kathleen Norris, author of Amazing Grace )In her 1997 Lyman Beecher Lectures, Barbara Taylor probes the question. . . : In a culture afflicted with rampant word inflation, how can preachers hope to bear effective witness to the Word? . . .“The instinctive reaction of many preachers . . . only exacerbates the problem. Perhaps, Taylor hypothesizes, instead of trying to compete with the incessant, empty chatter of the day, preachers should honor and cultivate a space for sacred silence. In broad and deft strokes she lines out the sweep of salvation history, suggesting that ‘revelation’ has always been as much (or more) a matter of what Godleaves unspokenas of what Godstates.In this book . . . Barbara Taylor has framed a fitting space for further reflection. (David J. Schlafer, priest and consultant in momiletical formation, Bethseda, MD )