Silence Is Still Golden
A moment of silence is not a prayer.
In these hectic days, a moment of silence is a treasure. It is one of the few things we can grant ourselves without any cost. That makes it too valuable an idea to be hijacked and politicized for other aims, namely the crusade to force prayer in school. Rather than fight about it, we should all join: Let’s have a moment of silence in public schools. And then be quiet about it. We can turn our attention to what happens during those other 389 minutes of the classroom day.
Who among us would not benefit from a moment of serious reflection, our children too? If you want to use the time to pray, swell.
Just don’t make it a prayer.
Unfortunately, that’s precisely what some chronic troublemakers are trying to leverage out of Sept. 11. They want prayer in schools, now more than ever. And if they cannot quite get it because of the founding principles of this nation, as upheld (so far) by all those infidels on the Supreme Court, then they will settle for a moment of silence--just as long as everyone understands, wink, that silence means a victory for prayer.
To insist on this interpretation is bigotry. That’s an inflammatory word, and I use it intentionally. The dictionary definition of bigot is a person who holds blindly and intolerantly to an opinion. This plainly describes those who wish to use a moment of silence as a Trojan horse for their prayers.
Let’s also quickly acknowledge that I’m speaking of people who are good-hearted, at least those I know. They are upstanding neighbors and have high expectations for themselves and others. They just happen to believe we should all pray.
It can’t hurt us, they say. And that, for a fact, is true. If we choose, a prayer can be regarded as nothing more than words, and we hear words we don’t agree with all the time.
However, it is equally true that prayers embody beliefs. To force beliefs on the unwilling can--and has--hurt us in many ways and surely would again. There is no more sure-fire path to religious conflict.
The real message of Sept. 11 is not that prayer will bring us together. It’s that religion can tear us apart. For instance, how long after we impose prayer in school do we start arguing over whose prayer?
Some years ago, I listened to the chaplain of the California Senate deliver a poignant prayer. It was the wisest I’ve ever heard by way of offering guidance to politicians.
In its entirety, it went: (Pause ... ) “If it takes a lot of words to say what is on your mind, why don’t you give it more thought?”
Unfortunately, many politicians missed the cutting wisdom of the Rev. Shoko Masunaga’s prayer that day. He was a Buddhist, and a large number of our distinguished state senators stood outside in the hall, boycotting because they did not believe Buddhist prayers belonged in a public chamber. Many of these senators, I might add, would have voted 10 minutes later for a constitutional amendment to mandate prayer in schools. And they would have been first to castigate the heathens who dared walk out--unless of course it was a Buddhist prayer or maybe a Mormon prayer or a Jewish prayer or an Islamic prayer or an Apache prayer, or whatever prayer they disagreed with.
No one should discount the religious intolerance that is growing in the land. That pious Sunday School teacher Jimmy Carter last year severed his lifelong ties with the Southern Baptist Convention, saying that its leaders have become too rigid in trying “to ordain their creed on others.”
Since Sept. 11, the nation’s largest Protestant denomination and the sixth-largest Lutheran denominations have both made headlines by restating their beliefs that interfaith prayers are heresy. When folks like that get worked up over what kind of prayers are appropriate in schools, we’ll never enjoy any quiet.
A moment of silence serves not as middle ground between believers and nonbelievers. It is open ground for all beliefs. Use it as you want. Use it wisely because we allow ourselves so few moments in our days to nourish ourselves. Don’t drag the idea where it doesn’t belong.
Those who oppose a moment of silence because it might be seen as a victory for prayer are as narrow-minded as those who say it is.
