Listening to the Small Voice Inside of Us

10/15/19
Liza Ewen
Acting Head of School

At last week’s Meeting for Worship, I read a query--an open-ended, self-reflective question that students in Nursery-Grade 8 had heard and considered in their classrooms throughout the week. The query asked, “What images, feelings, or words come to me when it’s silent? How do silence and stillness help me and others at FSH?” As you might imagine, silence doesn’t always come easily to children, whose energy and curiosity are innately unbridled. Combine this with the fact that, like all citizens of the 21st-century, children are bombarded with stimuli wherever they go, and silence becomes, at its best, a laboratory in which they can (literally) sound their questions or test out all the yet-discovered ways they can make noise. At its worst, it’s just plain dull.

I followed up on last week’s query at today’s all-school assembly by asking students to think about the different kinds of listening we do at Friends School Haverford. We don’t just listen to our classmates and our teachers--we also listen when no one is talking. Fittingly, this led to some giggles--what is there to listen for if no one is talking?

As a Quaker school, we’re learning to listen to the small voice inside of us. Quakers refer to this as “the still, small voice of God.” In the context of Quaker education, I encouraged students this morning to think of it as the voice of an inner teacher, guiding each of us to be our best selves. Silence provides each of us a chance to reconnect with that voice and to heed its call, individually and collectively.

I wish you all a great week and, as always, invite you to listen in silence with us on Thursdays at 9:15 am in the Meetinghouse.