The Great Circle-Dance of the Religions by Bro. David Steindl-Rast O.S.B.

In a genuine conversation we share something that goes deeper than words: we allow the silence of the heart to come to word.

[Cont. from page 2] ... Whenever we experience meaning in which our restlessness finds rest (at least for the moment), three aspects can be singled out, which I shall call Word, Silence, and Understanding. Let's start with the most obvious. When we have a meaningful encounter, read or see something deeply meaningful to us, we are apt to say, "This speaks to me." Whatever it is that has meaning for us tells us something, has a message for us, and under this aspect; I call it Word. Obviously, we are not talking here about a word from a vocabulary list. Word stands here in the widest sense for anything that embodies its meaning — for the candle, for instance, that you light on a festive table for a meal you share with a friend.

It is not difficult for us to see that there must be something that "has" meaning whenever we "find" meaning. Nor should it be too difficult to agree on calling this something Word. It gets a little more difficult when we turn to a second aspect of every meaningful experience, one to which we tend to pay less attention. I call this aspect Silence. An example may help us. We can quite readily distinguish between a mere exchange of words and a meaningful conversation. In a genuine conversation we share something that goes deeper than words: we allow the silence of the heart to come to word. In contrast to an exchange of words, a true dialogue between friends is rather an exchange of silence with silence by means of words.

It is by doing that we understand.

We have experienced Word and Silence in this sense. By focusing our attention we are able to distinguish them as essential aspects of anything that is meaningful. But there is a third aspect to be explored: Understanding. To call something meaningful implies understanding. Without Understanding neither Word nor Silence have meaning. What then is Understanding? We may think of it as a process, by which Silence comes to word and Word, by being understood, returns into Silence.

There is a curious idiom in American vernacular: when something, say a piece of music or a moving event (Word, that is,) becomes profoundly meaningful to us, we might say, "This really sends me." Language gives us a hint here. When Word deeply touches us, it sends us, sends us into action. Paradoxically both are true: Word, when it is understood comes to rest in Silence; yet, this rest is not inactivity, rather it is a most dynamic doing. Thus, Understanding happens when we listen so readily to the Word that it moves us to action and so leads us back into the Silence out of which it came and into which it returns. It is by doing that we understand.

Since every religious tradition is an expression of the human heart's perennial quest for meaning, the three characteristic aspects of meaning, Word, Silence, and Understanding will also characterize the world's religions. All three will be present in every tradition, for they are essential for meaning, yet we might expect differences of emphasis. In the primal religions — African or Native American, for instance — our three aspects of meaning are still quite equally emphasized and interwoven with one another as myth, ritual, and right living. But as the Western traditions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), Buddhism and Hinduism grow out of the primal religious matrix, emphasis falls more strongly on Word, Silence, or Understanding respectively, although all three will always play their role in each tradition.

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