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

In Christianity — indeed in the whole biblical tradition — the emphasis falls on the Word.

[Cont. from page 3] ... Allow me to start with my own — the Christian tradition — to sketch a (necessarily rough) scheme that might help us to appreciate the diversity of religious traditions and to understand their relationships to each other. It doesn't take much to see how heavily in Christianity — indeed in the whole biblical tradition — the emphasis falls on the Word. God spoke and the world was created. This is a mythical way of expressing the worldview of the Bible: everything that exists can be understood as Word of God. So central is this notion that one might rightly see Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, all three of them, contained as in a seed in the statement “God speaks.”

One of the Hasidic tales told by Martin Buber clearly brings out the preeminence of Word in Western religious tradition. Of Rabbi Susya, one of the great Hasidic mystics, it is said that he was unable to quote the sermons of his teacher. The story explains this serious shortcoming in the following way. Rabbi Susya's teacher was in the habit of beginning his sermons by first reading a passage from Holy Scripture. He would start by unrolling the Torah scroll, saying "God spoke:" …and then begin to read. But at this point poor Rabbi Susya had already heard more than he could bear. He would carry on so wildly that they had to lead him out of the synagogue. There he would stand in the hallway or in the woodshed beating the walls and shouting, "God spoke! God spoke!" that was enough for him. Martin Buber suggests that Rabbi Susya understood the meaning of God's Word more deeply than all those who could quote their teacher's sermons. "For with one word the world is created," he says, "and with one word the world is redeemed."

Since every thing, every person, every situation comes from the God who speaks, the whole world is Word by which we can live.

Where Word is so central, response will be given a high priority: hence, the emphasis on responding to God in the Western tradition of spirituality. "Living by the Word" is a whole world of prayer that springs typically from the biblical faith in God who speaks. And "Living by the Word" implies far more than the idea that God gives the word in the sense of a command and the faithful carry it out. That is merely the moral dimension of it. The full religious dimension implies that we are nourished "by every word that comes forth from the mouth of God." But let us take Word in its widest sense, here too.

Since every thing, every person, every situation comes from the God who speaks, the whole world is Word by which we can live. We need only "taste and see how good God is." We do this with all our senses. Through whatever we taste or touch, smell, hear, or see God's love can nourish us. For the one creating and redeeming Word is spelled out to us in ever new ways. God who is love, has nothing else to say in all eternity but "I love you!" And God says this in ever new ways through everything that comes into being. And we "eat it all up;" as we might say of a book, "I devoured it, cover to cover." We assimilate this food and it becomes our life. We live in its strength. We become Word.

"Those who can hear God's Word can also hear God's Silence."

So strong is this emphasis on Word in Christian spirituality that even some faithful Christians are hardly aware that there are within their own tradition other worlds of prayer to be explored. One of them is known as "Prayer of Silence." Here the Silence itself becomes our prayer. C.S. Lewis, is in accord with ancient Christian tradition when he speaks of God as a Abyss of Silence into which we can throw down our minds for ever and ever, never will we hear an echo coming back. Yet, this silent abyss is paradoxically also the divine womb from which the eternal Word comes forth. As an early Christian saying puts it: "those who can hear God's Word can also hear God's Silence." The two are inseparable. There are more and more Christians today who spontaneously discover the Prayer of Silence. Sometimes they cannot account for their hunger for Silence, their deep desire simply to let themselves down into the quiet depth of God. Unaware that they have found their way into an ancient, timelessly valid realm of Christian prayer, they would be all the more surprised to learn that this could rightly be called the Buddhist dimension of the biblical tradition. Word and Silence are inseparable, as we have said. Just as Word is the core of Western tradition, however, Silence is the core of Buddhism.

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