Your Silence Won't Protect You

"Your silence won't protect you in here." These words have stayed with me ever since the director of Abbot Northwestern Hospital's Clinical Pastoral Education program uttered them to me. I was a seminarian fulfilling my unit of required CPE. I have no memory of what the actual topic was but I can still feel the chair beneath me and see the office in my mind.

I wasn't completely sure of what he meant when he said it to me. During CPE, I was a chaplain in a children's hospital and responsible for one other floor in the "regular" hospital. Walking in and out of stranger's rooms put me way out of my comfort zone. So did the small group therapy sessions that happened with other chaplains during the week.

I'm an observer. I tend to stand back and watch a group before deciding how, or if, I will join in. At the time, I didn't fully understand how this bit of wisdom would relate to ministry...or life for that matter, but over the years it has played back in my mind time and time again.

Silence is often my amour of choice, and he was right, it doesn't protect me. It buys me time. It helps me calculate what is going on within a group. It allows this extrovert some time to think verse react, but it doesn't protect me. (Using extrovert as 'one who talks until they know what they think' verses an introvert who 'thinks until they know what they feel')

I am once again reminded of this phrase, this time in terms of marriage. I've known my husband since 1994. We were married in 2000. We know each other. We are good friends. We are very different. Communication is always tricky...perhaps especially when you know each other and are good friends. It is easy to assume the other knows what you want and need. It is very easy to assume the other thinks and needs the same thing in the same way they needed and felt in 1994.

It is also easy with two kids, a dog, house, jobs, sickness, grief, etc. to lose each other and to lose oneself. The wise words from the CPE director came back to me the other day when mid-let's just say it-fight, my husband said, "You need to tell me these things. I don't just know."

I was silent for a few reasons. One is, I fall victim to the fantasy that the love of your life should just know you; and two, if I don't say what I want, I don't run the risk of not getting it. The third, not so flattering one is, that it is easier to whine "I'm so misunderstood." than it is to do the work to be understood.

Peacebang writes a lovely entry about her summer of self care and as I read it I was overcome with jealously. It wasn't so much what she said, although she writes beautifully and has wise things to say, it was that she had the time to do the work. I should say, made the time. This is what I need, a time of reflection. I need the world to pause so I can breathe and catch up. Mine wouldn't/can't look exactly like her Summer of Prayer, and because I have fallen into a bit of 'martyr mom mode,' I just pout around mopey that I can't get a break. Silently fuming and fussing...grief and gripes piling up--I choose silence.

My silence won't protect me. It is, actually, hurting me. If I don't speak up and say what I need, there is no chance I will get it. Accusing others of denying me my needs isn't fair or true. Some of what I need, can't happen and I must make peace with that. In other cases, I don't know exactly what I am trying for...but silence isn't it.