Silent Day is one of the highlights of every SDE meeting. As expected, from Friday evening, a gentle but profound silence enveloped Skalholt all the way through to the Agape meal on Saturday. I find the essential meaning of Silent Day in the words of Tagore’s Gitanjali:

I ask for a moment’s indulgence to sit by thy side. The works that I have in hand I will finish afterwards.

Away from the sight of thy face my heart knows no rest nor respite, and my work becomes an endless toil in a shoreless sea of toil.

Today the summer has come at my window with its sighs and murmurs; and the bees are plying their minstrelsy at the court of the flowering grove.

Now it is time to sit quiet, face to face with thee, and to sing dedication of life in this silent and overflowing leisure.(Stanza V)

It was not quite summer in Skalholt, but the rain and the wind stayed their hands, and from time to time the sun peeped demurely around the clouds. Alone, but in wordless communion, we walked the footpaths and bridlepaths around Skalholt, or processed through the prayer stations set up in the Main House.

The staff accompanied us in their own way: with gentle music in the dining room; a simple lunch to match the spirit of the day. An unexpected treat for afternoon coffee signalled the approaching end of Silent Day. At 5.45 pm we collected around the hot spring to watch Bjarkke, our chef, retrieve the dough he had placed there on Friday: it was steamed to perfection and was taken into the church for our Agape celebration.

Mary Nono led us in a contemplation of Jesus’s apparition to the disciples on the shores of the Sea of Galilee and the miraculous catch of fish (Jn 21: 1-14). That and his subsequent conversation with Peter (Jn 21: 15-19) offers a framework for understanding and bringing order to our own calling as spiritual companions. We shared the bread and wine, then broke silence with exuberant greetings of peace. Silent communion leads ineffably to the joyful community of Pentecost.

We rounded the day off with a splendid concert given by the church organist. Once again, Rabindranath Tagore’s epic, Gitanjali (Song Offerings) expresses the mood of the moment:

I know not how thou singest, my master! I ever listen in silent amazement.

The light of thy music illumines the world. The life breath of thy music runs from sky to sky. The holy stream of thy music breaks through all stony obstacles and rushes on.

My heart longs to join in thy song, but vainly struggles for a voice. I would speak, but speech breaks not into song, and I cry out baffled. Ah, thou hast made my heart captive in the endless meshes of thy music, my master!(Stanza III)

Excerpted from https://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/tagore/gitnjali.htm

Edward Warrington