Do we have the inner freedom to be creative? Much of the time we are reactive fearful personalities pulled in different directions. Buchman talked of the possibility of living a panic-free, fear-free life, challenging people to break the power of their instinctive actions and reactions by obeying the Spirit. To facilitate this, he encouraged people to aside time for quiet listening to the ‘still small voice’, or ‘guidance’ – he used different phrases to describe the nature of this deeper kind of listening. Buchman tended to call the practice itself the ‘quiet time’, although other phrases can be used.
From the Eastern Orthodox tradition, this icon depicts a man trying to listen to the voice of an angel speaking over his shoulder.
The silence Buchman was seeking after involved people learning to let go of the busy quality of their everyday thoughts in order to allow a more spiritual dimension of reality to become evident. It meant a ‘letting go’ of selfish agendas, a kind of ‘surrender’ – to use a term much used in the religious culture he grew up in. Buchman’s own quiet times also involved reading the Bible, I guess slowly sifting it – more for inspiration than information.
The quiet time for Buchman was a place where people might find some of their deepest needs and motivations coming to light. Healing, wholeness and integration could come out of it, if practiced over time and turned into a habit. It could set people’s lives going down a better path and give hope in hopeless situations.
Buchman talked of the ‘great symphony’ that comes to us when we listen. And he said that a vision for the world would emerge as people got ‘guidance’ from God about their lives. The practice of silence would also lead to people experiencing a heightened quality of thinking and living – ‘silence can be the regulator of men and nations’, he once said.
