Creating a New Civility by Joy Marsella

Author:Joy Marsella [Marsella, Joy]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Philosophy, Ethics & Moral Philosophy, Civics & Citizenship, Self-Help, Communication & Social Skills, Political Science
ISBN: 9781629221236
Google: IvyiyAEACAAJ
Publisher: University of Akron Press
Published: 2020-03-02T07:54:16+00:00

Of one thing we can be certain: silence is not an absence.

In our identity interrogation and mindfulness meditation, the subject of silence has been tacit—unexpressed yet present. In interrogating our identity, we studied power dynamics, asking: Have we been silenced? Have we silenced? Has there been a time when silence was healing? When has silence brought understanding and possibly a desire for common cause?

Silence is at the heart of meditation, so we bring knowledge of its richness to the vibratory awareness we are developing here. We are already sensing, quoting Glenn again, that “[s]ilence itself is not silent: it is the origination of sound, the sound or creative flow of being (bodies being beating bodies, fires being crackling fires, rain being pattering rain, computers being humming computers, and so on).”3

You may have experienced what Glenn calls “the creative flow of being” in either your meditative breathing or your body scan, when you are listening to the sound of your body or when you are in tune with your felt sense. There is no passivity in this kind of silence; there can be alertness, sensitivity, attentiveness, and sometimes stoicism. Indeed, your own silence can allow other voices to be heard.4 Yet silence is sometimes an “imbalance,… .[when it is] weakness, impotence, fear, and subordination in the face of dominance.”5

What we are really doing here is exploring vibrations and sorting out what kind we will carry on our civility journey. We begin with attentiveness and sensitivity to what is happening in the silence around us. Our sensitivities locate and open up silences. Our dictum: all silence has meaning.

Developing Artful Listening

How do we listen? How do we demonstrate that we honor and respect the person talking and what the person is saying? How do we translate listening into language and action, into the creation of an appropriate response?

—Jacqueline Jones Royster

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