The importance of quiet

A series of original and helpful travel books include those written by the artist, photographer and writer, the English-born Siobhan Wall. The books are all headed by the word “quiet” – hence her books include: Quiet London, Quiet New York, Quiet Barcelona and variations on that theme.

What is so refreshing about the series is that the author challenges the more obvious tourist blurbs, which celebrate the hustle and bustle of these massive cities.

In an interview Siobhan Wall talks about living with a hearing problem and her constant desire to explore the pockets and corners of these noisy, crowded and over-stimulated urban spaces. Her suggestions include tiny gardens, libraries, cafés tucked in hidden alleys and hushed religious spaces.

For many of us, quiet is a desperately endangered species important for all our five senses. Today we seem to have a greater struggle to find it in our hyperactive, increasingly chattering, ever-flashing and click-baiting universe.

The great Italian physician and educationalist Dr Maria Montessori (1870-1952) was challenged by the wild and distracted behaviour of the underprivileged children she was trying to teach. She observed that more stimulus and threats were not what the children needed. She began to teach the children to quieten and still themselves and eventually developed the now well-known Silence Game deployed in Montessori Centres and more widely today.

She wrote: “One day I had the idea of using silence to test the children’s keenness of hearing, so I thought of calling them by name, in a low whisper … This exercise in patient waiting demanded a patience that I thought impossible.”

Montessori found that creating spaces and rituals of quiet with the stilling of all the senses enabled the children to develop greater attention, calmer spirits, a receptivity to others and a greater ability to be self-aware and to have mastery over their own actions.

Perhaps adults need to discover this as well.

It is important to realise that what Montessori advocated here was not quietism or passivity. In fact, it takes great attention and an engaged receptivity to be truly quiet.

Christians of course should be at the forefront of a “quiet” revolution – if only because we know how important it was in the life of our Master, Jesus Christ.

How often does the New Testament record His withdrawal from the madding crowd to quiet places for prayer and recollection? How many monks and saints likewise have sought and built silence into their time and space? Quiet is just as important for busy parents, overstressed workers and hassled parish priests.

Without some quiet we cannot hear ourselves think, settle our jangled nerves or be available to really hear what others are saying. Even more importantly, we cannot find our bearings by listening to God communicating with us through prayer, the natural world or in our consciences.

Sam Guzman wrote in 2016 in the elegant blog, The Catholic Gentleman, of our original inheritance of the ability to sense and see God before the world of chaos and sin damaged our intellects and wounded our souls. Quiet becomes an emergency medicine that restores our ear to God.

“Silence too helps us to preserve the graces that God sends to us. Scuba divers are careful and slow with their movements so as not to waste unnecessarily their precious reserves of oxygen. Likewise, holy souls speak carefully and prudently to preserve their reservoir of grace.”

How honoured the Thomas More Centre was two weeks ago to have been able to host the book launch of Unconformed to the Age by one of the world’s stars of “quiet” and soft-spoken academic excellence, with Professor Tracey Rowland sharing her experiences and wisdom along with her new book with the audience.

Her commencement speech in September this year at Christendom College in Virginia, USA, at which she was awarded an honorary doctorate, was nominated by the Catholic advocacy network, Catholic Vote, in the top-eight great commencement speeches of 2024.

It is very impressive that such popular approval should be afforded to the humble but definite Australian, Professor Rowland, alongside such speakers as Jonathan Roumie (who plays Jesus Christ in The Chosen series), Cardinal Raymond Burke and Fr Mike Schmitz. One thinks of a theological version of the old BHP advertisement celebrating the “quiet achiever”.

The Thomas More Centre wants to be a partner in the thoughtfulness and yet creative promise of the “quiet” revolution, too.

Our practical philosophy in organising our events and preparing our resources aims to encourage all that is personalised, intelligent, reflective and balanced. We aim to listen and to observe matters that touch our supporters and those in the wider community.

Our team around Australia are young and energetic but they are patient, philosophical and receptive to the TMC tradition and to oldies like me. Like many younger Christians they are drawn to the classics and tradition as well as the newer technologies and methods.

We look forward with quiet confidence to our next year with your invaluable support.

Anna Krohn
Executive Director
Thomas More Centre