Words, Wordlessness, and the Word

by Peter Bien

Overview

In silent worship one can ritualistically participate in the unity of Godhead by abandoning the in authenticity of words. But words are not eliminated in Quaker worship, which reconciles the human necessity of speaking with the spiritual need for silence. Most deeply, words and wordlessness are allies; silence is not speech's elimination so much as its seed-bed, an excess of messages expressed, unexpressed, and perhaps inexpressible. In meeting, as in Beckett's novel The Unnamable, the wordless silence of the Word paradoxically gives meaning to the messages, just as the messages paradoxically give meaning to the silence.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940150882362
Publisher:	Pendle Hill Publications
Publication date:	07/25/2015
Series:	Pendle Hill Pamphlets , #303
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	30
File size:	261 KB

About the Author

Peter Bien is Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Dartmouth College, where he is also co-coordinator of Peace Studies. Educated at Deerfield, Harvard, Haverford, Bristol, Columbia, and Woodbrooke, he teaches mainly modern British prose, specializing in James Joyce, and does research mainly in modern Greek literature, specializing in Nikos Kazantzakis. He has been a visiting lecturer at Harvard, Melbourne, Woodbrooke, and—most recently—Pendle Hill, where he led a class in John Milton’s Paradise Lost. His past Quaker service includes supervising weekend workcamps and clerking his meeting. Currently he is a member of the Executive Board of Pendle Hill and is clerk of the Board of Overseers of Kendal at Hanover, a Quaker retirement community.
This essay obviously combines his literary and Quakerly involvements. Specifically, it grows out of his Dartmouth courses in modern British fiction, his deep sympathy for the mystical power of Quaker silence, his love of words, and his incorrigible weakness for all things Greek.