Author and CAC team member Cassidy Hall reflects on the cost of making choices out of shame and the “toxic silence” it creates:
For over five years, I actively participated in one of the most toxic silences of my life. I was in a romantic relationship with someone who wouldn’t publicly date me because they weren’t open about their sexuality. At the mercy of someone else’s comfort—or lack thereof—I participated in a silencing of myself in public places, around family members, with friends, at work, even at the grocery store…. This kind of silence, brought on by shame, creates long-lasting damage and knots to be untied for years to come. Silence where love cannot prevail is a place of toxicity, a place of stunted existence.
Hall describes the positive effects of “loving silence” cultivated through contemplative practice:
We need to name toxic silence as the silence that causes harm, shame, minimization, and damage to our world. And we need to name loving silence as the silence that is generative and creative, a silence that deepens our unity with self and others—the kind of silence that cultivates a more expansive and loving world….
When I finally stepped away from that relationship’s hamster wheel of toxic silence, I began to see how I had silenced other parts of myself. Beyond the ways I was hiding my sexuality, I also hid parts of myself informed by intuition—places of creativity and aliveness, places of openness and community, places of clarity and calm—ultimately the places where a loving silence thrived….
In the Christian context, the toxicity of silent bystanders creates and feeds countless acts of violence: the sexual abuse in many church settings and its continuation through empty apologies; Christianity’s lack of reckoning with its history of colonization; denominations’ refusal to honor and elevate the leadership and dignity of women, people of color, refugees, people with disabilities, and people from other marginalized communities; churches filling with Christian nationalism and white supremacy culture; the countless times the silent acceptance of bad theology has caused an LGBTQIA+ person to hate or harm themselves; and more. This is the silence of harm, violence, shame, and toxicity….
Toxic silence is embedded in the fabric of our daily lives…. Yet a [contemplative] loving silence can also be pursued, and we can seek and find it even in the chaos of our days. Sometimes it seeps in with our efforts to repeat an internal mantra or take an intentional pause, and other times it pours in like the colorful morning light through the east-facing window. This is the contemplative silence I continually seek and practice. This silence regenerates, regulates, allows for the emergence of loving presence and action. The more we engage in the silences that aren’t toxic—the beautiful, loving, and infinite possibilities of silence—the more we encounter silence as a creative, generative force and not a destructive one.
Reference:
Cassidy Hall, Queering Contemplation: Finding Queerness in the Roots and Future of Contemplative Spirituality (Broadleaf Books, 2024), 40, 42, 43, 44.
Image Credit and Inspiration: Elianna Gill, untitled (detail), 2023, photo, Unsplash. Click here to enlarge image. A group of people, regardless of background, welcome each other into community.
Story from Our Community:
In today’s meditation, I was struck by the line, “Our best questions often sound like doubts, yet I believe curiosity is the most reverent stance a human can take.” In second grade, I asked Sister Ann why I had to go to confession, “Can I not just ask God for forgiveness when I say my prayers?” I was sent to the corner to ask for forgiveness from the Virgin Mary and told, “You never question God.” I am so grateful that over the years of reading CAC’s meditations, I’ve learned that God actually welcomes our curiosity. I think I’m finally getting past the fear of being sent to the corner for being curious.
—Nicki A.
