Ashe Van Steenwyk: Silence, Queer Spirituality, and the Prophetic Imagination
Jan 16, 2024
The Encountering Silence team returns with an interview recorded last spring but unreleased until now! Cassidy, Kevin and Carl sat down for a contemplative conversation with Maki Ashe Van Steenwyk (she/they), a queer mystic who is the author of three books and the executive director of the Center for Prophetic Imagination in Minneapolis. Maki Ashe Van Steenwyk Ashe (formerly writing under the name “Mark”) is the author of A Wolf at the Gate, unKingdom: Repenting of Christianity in America, and That Holy Anarchist: Reflections on Christianity and Anarchism, along with contributing to edited works like Banned Questions About Jesus and Forming Christian Habits in Post-Christendom. Ashe's writing has been published in Sojourners, Geez Magazine, JesusRadicals.com, Leadership Magazine, the Mennonite, and Mennonite World Review. Her work has been featured in the Minneapolis Star Tribute, the Boston Globe, and on CNN.com. As the former co-producer of the Iconocast, Ashe interviewed Cornel West, James Cone, Bill Ayers, Starhawk, Wazayatawin and many others. These days, Ashe is usually on the other side of the virtual microphone — like with us here on Encountering Silence. Ashe has a B.S. in Ministry from the University of Northwestern, an M.Div. from Bethel Theological Seminary, and studied Spiritual Direction at the University of St. Catherine’s graduate school. Ashe is currently working on her doctoral dissertation at United Theological Seminary. The Center for Prophetic Imagination works to subvert the existing social order through deep discernment culminating with creative action. In the tradition of the prophets, we long for a world where all walls of alienation are torn down and we all live justly with one another, with the land, and with the spirit of liberation. In addition to a robust online presence, the Center for Prophetic Imagination offers spiritual direction, formation for spiritual directors with an emphasis on social transformation (in partnership with the Minnesota Institute for Contemplation and Healing), and other programs. Our conversation explored Ashe's commitment to the intersection of contemplation and justice, her unique perspective on both spirituality and activism as a trans woman, and more. Visit Ashe online at www.makiashe.com. Visit the Center for Prophetic Imagination's website at www.propheticimagination.org.
Kaira Jewel Lingo: We Were Made for These Times
Mar 06, 2023
Friends, here is the latest episode of the Encountering Silence podcast. This episode features a conversation the Encountering Silence team had last year with Buddhist author Kaira Jewel Lingo, author of We Were Made for These Times: Ten Lessons in Moving through Change, Loss and Disruption. Kaira Jewel Lingo is a Dharma teacher who has a lifelong interest in blending spirituality and meditation with social justice. Having grown up in an ecumenical Christian community where families practiced a new kind of monasticism and worked with the poor, at the age of twenty-five she entered a Buddhist monastery in the Plum Village tradition and spent fifteen years living as a nun under the guidance of Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh. She received Lamp Transmission from Thich Nhat Hanh and became a Zen teacher in 2007, and is also a teacher in the Vipassana Insight lineage through Spirit Rock Meditation Center. Today she sees her work as a continuation of the Engaged Buddhism developed by Thich Nhat Hanh as well as the work of her parents, inspired by their stories and her dad’s work with Martin Luther King Jr. on desegregating the South. In addition to writing We Were Made for These Times, she is also the editor of Thich Nhat Hanh’s Planting Seeds: Practicing Mindfulness with Children. Now based in New York, she teaches and leads retreats internationally, provides spiritual mentoring to groups, and interweaves art, play, nature, racial and earth justice, and embodied mindfulness practice in her teaching. She especially feels called to share the Dharma with Black, Indigenous, and People of Color, as well as activists, educators, youth, artists, and families. Visit kairajewel.com to learn more.
Joy A. Schroeder: Encountering the Silenced Voices of Women Biblical Interpreters
Nov 16, 2022
Dr. Joy A. Schroeder, a Lutheran pastor, joins the Encountering Silence team to explore the shadow side of silence — in this case, the silencing of many significants voices in the Christian tradition, of women Bible interpreters. Dr. Schroeder is a specialist in the history of biblical interpretation. She is professor of church history at Trinity Lutheran Seminary and the Department of Religion and Philosophy at Capital University, Columbus, Ohio. She is the author of Deborah's Daughters: Gender Politics and Biblical Interpretation, Dinah's Lament: The Biblical Legacy of Sexual Violence in Christian Interpretation, and several other books on the history of interpretation of scripture. She is the co-author (with Marion Ann Taylor) of Voices Long Silenced: Women Biblical Interpreters Through the Centuries, which tells the story of the many women who studied and interpreted the Bible over the past two thousand years, but whose stories have remained largely untold. In Voices Long Silenced, Schroeder and Taylor introduce readers to the notable contributions of female commentators through the centuries. They unearth fascinating accounts of Jewish and Christian women from diverse communities—rabbinic experts, nuns, mothers, mystics, preachers, teachers, suffragists, and household managers—who interpreted Scripture through their writings. The book recounts the struggles and achievements of women who gained access to education and biblical texts. It tells the story of how their interpretive writings were preserved or, all too often, lost. It also explores how, in many cases, women interpreted Scripture differently from the men of their times. Consequently, Voices Long Silenced makes an important, new contribution to biblical reception history. This book focuses on women's written words and briefly comments on women’s interpretation in media, such as music, visual arts, and textile arts. It includes short, representative excerpts from diverse women’s own writings that demonstrate noteworthy engagement with Scripture. Voices Long Silenced calls on scholars and religious communities to recognize the contributions of women, past and present, who interpreted Scripture, preached, taught, and exercised a wide variety of ministries in churches and synagogues.
Carmen Acevedo Butcher: Encountering Silence in the Presence of God
Aug 21, 2022
Carmen Acevedo Butcher, Ph.D., is renowned for her luminous translation of The Cloud of Unknowing with the Book of Privy Counsel. Her latest book — a new translation of Brother Lawrence's Practice of the Presence — will be published on Tuesday, August 25, 2022. The Encountering Silence team sat down with her recently and spoke about translation, mystical theology, God and pronouns, and of course — silence. Recently Carmen wrote a guest post for Carl McColman's Patheos blog. We're reposting it here for our Encountering Silence Community. “If the little ship of our soul is still rattled and tossed by winds or by storm, let's wake up the God who's resting there.” Brother Lawrence’s epistolary advice to a nun 340 years ago, from Practice of the Presence, recently “set up shop” in the heart of a dear thirtysomething friend, she said. I too am thankful for his timeless, calm wisdom in our ongoing global ‘perfect storm.’ For centuries this spiritual classic has fulfilled and transcended its Carmelite tradition. Beloved by people of all faiths, wisdom traditions, and none whatsoever, its heart beats with a returning—in micro-moments of meditation—to God, Kindness, Love, True Self, or however you conceive of Mystery. Its author is easy on the heart too. As I translated his work from French into English, a sense of his brokenness, genuine kindness, ordinary life, and suffering humanity emerged. Because the friar developed his prayer practiceinstinctively for his own healing while experiencing profound anxiety, his book rings with equally profound authenticity. Born Nicolas Herman in 1614 into the Third Estate of peasants, wage laborers, and bourgeoisie, he had no formal education and no advantages. Around 20 he was severely injured in the leg during the Thirty Years’ War. Leaving the military a disabled veteran, he limped in pain the rest of his long life, spending his last two years unable to walk. Brother Lawrence shared with his good friend the priest Joseph of Beaufort that he’d also suffered terrible psychological pain. During a dark night of the soul from twenty-six to thirty-six: “He often relived in his mind the dangers of his days in military service, the emptiness and corruption of the times,” and meditated on “the disorders of his youth,” causing him “horror.” His prayer practice first appealed to me because it made visible my earliest contemplative experiences in nature. There something in me yet inchoate kept me company kindly, out among the red-tailed hawks and tall evergreen pines of red-earthed north Georgia, wandering hours alone in search of peace, trying to process childhood trauma. Every 4am of the first pandemic summer I got up to translate the friar’s work. Seeing the sun in with my new friend, I was drawn to this down-to-earth mystic’s exceptionally calming presence. Grieving with the ever-rising deaths non-stop narrated in global and local news and in conversations with friends who lost family, I was also teaching full-time on Zoom as I translated, trying to help my students who had catastrophic grief, deaths of loved ones, housing insecurities, food precarities, job losses, or were juggling multiple jobs and school, and other stresses. Our cataclysmic times echo with Brother Lawrence’s century of plague, authoritarianism, inequities, wars, climate crisis, and famine. After leaving the military, the friar knew failure as a hermit, then as a Paris footman, where he says he felt like “a clumsy oaf who broke everything.” Brother Lawrence in the kitchen; anonymous engraving from ca. 1900 (public domain) He decided to enter the monastery in Paris in the summer of 1640 as a lay brother. Taking the name Brother Lawrence of the Resurrection, he was assigned to the kitchen. He had “the strongest natural aversion” to scullery duties, but they lasted forty years. Gradually he learned to do even these “with the greatest love possible.” When standing became too much, he was reassigned to the monastery sandal shop, repairing his 100 or so brothers’ sandals. Over time Brother Lawrence learned to pray constantly. He called it “the practice of the presence.” An “easy” and “strengthening” form of micro-prayer done on the fly, this “brief lifting up of the heart” is a simple Love-homecoming, done at any time, as often as a person can, he says. The friar did this meditative returning-to-Love even when busiest in the kitchen flipping omelettes. Gradually, his presence prayer grew the spiritual muscles of his calmness to experience deep healing. He lived in and from an inner peace sustaining him through his last forty years, up to his death on February 12, 1691. Contemplative seekers today find the friar’s practice of the presence helpful because it’s portable, easy-to-do, healing, and cultivates our self-compassion and community. It’s evergreen. A moment of practicing the presence might begin with anything, an injury, a joy, a task, a cup of tea or coffee, morning sun through a window, a nagging worry, or any uncontrollable aspect of our human life. There we turn to Love, check in, then come back to the quotidian—open email, wash a dish, drive to work. Repeating this gentle returning develops our self-kindness, and empowers anyone to make a compassionate difference in our world. Since being-good-at-it is not the point of the friar’s practice, its unconditional-love foundation makes it especially healthy in our capitalistically transactional world. He says Love always called him back when he forgot, adding: “[W]e must not get discouraged when we forget it, for any good habit is only formed with difficulty, but when it is formed, we will find contentment in all we do.” This meditative habit directly connects a person with divinity, as he reminds: “If the will can in any way understand God, it can only be through love.” His centering on God as love is why I call him the friar d’amour. As Joseph shares, the friar’s practice of the presence made him “gentle” during a harsh time very like our own: “Brother Lawrence was a warm, welcoming person. He gave others confidence. . . . [Y]ou felt you could tell him anything. You knew you’d found a friend.” Friendship and peace are what this book offers. My translation of Practice of the Presence gives a wide range of readers access for the first time to the complete Brother Lawrence, who models developing calmness like a muscle. The kindest teacher, Brother Lawrence reassures all: “In the middle of your tasks you can comfort yourself with Love as often as you can. . . . Everyone is capable of these familiar conversations with God.” “Let’s begin.” Carmen Acevedo Butcher[/caption]Carmen Acevedo Butcher, Ph.D., is an author, teacher, poet, and an award-winning translator of spiritual texts. Her dynamic work has garnered interest from various media, including the BBC and NPR’s Morning Edition. A Carnegie Foundation Professor of the Year and Fulbright Senior Lecturer, Acevedo Butcher’s work in translation has made accessible works by such writers as The Cloud's Anonymous, Hildegard of Bingen, and Julian of Norwich. Her revolutionary translation of Brother Lawrence’s Practice of the Presencereleases August 2022 from Broadleaf Books. She currently teaches full-time at the University of California, Berkeley, in the College Writing Programs.
Encountering Silence with Sister Joyce Rupp
Jun 03, 2022
The Encountering Silence co-hosts (Cassidy Hall, Kevin Johnson and Carl McColman) recently spoke with Servite Sister Joyce Rupp, on the occasion of the publication of her most recent book, Return to the Root: Reflections on the Inner Life.Joyce Rupp is well known for her work as a writer, international retreat leader, and conference speaker. She is the author of numerous bestselling books, including Praying Our Goodbyes, Open the Door, and Fragments of Your Ancient Name. Some of her books, like Fly While You Still Have Wings have won awards from the Catholic Press Association. In the words of Jesuit author James Martin, “Joyce Rupp is one of the best Christian spiritual guides writing today.” You can learn more about Joyce Rupp by visiting her website, www.joycerupp.com — or check out some of her many books:
Sarah Lund is an ordained minister and has served as pastor to churches in Brooklyn, NY, Minneapolis, MN, and New Smyrna Beach, FL. She holds degrees from Trinity University, Princeton Theological Seminary, Rutgers University, and McCormick Theological Seminary. She is on the leadership team for Bethany Ecumenical Fellows, a mentoring program for young clergy, and serves as the Vice Chair for the United Church of Christ Mental Health Network. Dr. Lund received the Dell Award for Mental Health Education at the 30th General Synod of the UCC. She currently serves as a Vice President for Advancement at Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis, IN. You can get to know her better by reading her blog at www.sarahgriffithlund.com. Through vivid and powerful storytelling, Blessed Youth: Breaking the Silence about Mental Health with Children and Teenshelps to remove the barriers of stigma and shame associated with mental illness in children and teens. Readers will discover they are not alone and be reminded of God's grace and loving presence in the midst of the heartache and struggle of mental illness. In addition to stories of children and youth experiencing mental health challenges, this book includes practical resources such as prayers and a guide for having age-appropriate talks with children about warning signs and how to get help for themselves and friends. Ultimately, this important resource offers hope and help for everyone who loves a child or youth with mental health challenges. The Blessed Youth Survival Guide is a pocket-size companion guide for youth.
Our society and our church is ableist. We have a preference for people who are able-bodied. And so when we view candidates for ministry who have a physical disability, we are biased, and we automatically think that they are not able. — Sarah Griffith Lund.
To listen to Sarah Griffith Lund's previous episodes on Encountering Silence, click here & here and here & here.
As a pastor I have started a monthly day of prayer where I go to a local retreat center and have a day of silence. I find that that’s really crucial for my own sense of grounding and creating space to discern and to listen to the spirit. — Sarah Griffith Lund
Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
Silence, in order for it to feel safe for a lot of us, needs to have a host — a person who holds that silence, and who is hosting our visit. — Sarah Griffith Lund
Episode 139: Silence, Mental Health, and Youth: A Conversation with Sarah Griffith Lund Hosted by: Cassidy Hall With: Carl McColman and Kevin Johnson Guest: Sarah Griffith Lund Date Recorded: March 14, 2022
The Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis: Encountering Silence in Fierce Love
Nov 09, 2021
The Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis—Author, Activist, and Public Theologian—is the first female and first Black Senior Minister to serve in the historic Collegiate Church of New York, which dates to 1628. A graduate of Princeton Theological Seminary, Dr. Lewis and her activist work have been featured by the TODAY Show, MSNBC, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and The Washington Post, among many others.
In the silence I’ve learned there’s something about God… The silence is speaking. — Jacqui Lewis
Let’s be comfortable in the silence until we know. — Jacqui Lewis
Parents who want to raise revolutionary lovers cannot be silent. — Jacqui Lewis
She is the creator of the MSNBC online show Just Faith and the PBS show Faith and Justice, in which she led important conversations about culture and current events. Her new podcast, Love.Period., is produced by the Center for Action and Contemplation. Raised mostly in Chicago, she now lives with her husband in Manhattan. Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
If white people are feeling like they’ve been so wounded because their power is eroding and that keeps them silent in the face of injustice — that is not the kind of silence we want. — the Reverend Doctor Jacqui Lewis
Episode 138: Encountering Silence in Fierce Love: A Conversation with the Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis Hosted by: Cassidy Hall With: Kevin Johnson, Carl McColman Guest: Jacqui Lewis Date Recorded: November 1, 2021
Nikki Grimes: Encountering Glory, and Silence, in the Margins
Oct 14, 2021
Glory in the Margins: Sunday Poems Her latest book, Glory in the Margins: Sunday Poems, was recently published by Paraclete Press. Ms. Grimes lives in Corona, California. Photo credit: Aaron Lemen
Silence is everything. — Nikki Grimes
Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
Episode 137: Encountering Glory and Silence in the Margins: A Conversation with Nikki Grimes Hosted by: Carl McColman With: Cassidy Hall, Kevin Johnson Guest: Nikki Grimes Date Recorded: August 23, 2021
Amy Frykholm: Encountering the Wilderness of Silence
Aug 26, 2021
Silence often denotes something that is suppressed or repressed, and is an interiority that is about withholding, absence, and stillness. Quiet, on the other hand, is presence (one can, for example, describe prose or a sound as quiet) and can encompass fantastic motion. It is true that silence can be expressive, but its expression is often based on refusal or protest, not the abundance and wildness of the interior described above. Indeed, the expressiveness of silence is often aware of an audience, a watcher or listener whose presence is the reason for the withholding––it is an expressiveness which is intent and even defiant. This is a key difference between the two terms because in its inwardness, the aesthetic of quiet is watcherless. — Kevin Quashie
He is one of the co-editors of New Bones: Contemporary Black Writers in America. His essays have appeared in journals such as Meridians, African-American Review, the Massachusetts Review,Anthurium, and The Black Scholar. His most recent book is Black Aliveness, or a Poetics of Being. At Brown, Dr. Quashie teaches black cultural and literary studies, in addition to writing on teaching on black feminist/women’s studies, black queer studies and aesthetics.
An essential aspect to the idiom of prayer is waiting: the praying subject waits with agency, where waiting is not the result of having been acted upon (as in being made to wait), but is itself action. In waiting, there is no clear language or determined outcome; there is simply the practice of contemplation and discernment. This is a challenge to the way we commonly think of waiting, which is passive; it is also a disruption of the calculus of cause and effect which shapes so much of how we understand the social world.— Kevin Quashie
Our interview with Dr. Quashie proved to be that kind of rare, graced conversation where an insightful, learned discussion opened up beautifully into a resonant contemplative space.
This idea that prayer can articulate beyond its own self-indulgence is important to thinking about the bowed heads of Tommie Smith and John Carlos; that is, to read their protest as quiet expressiveness does not disavow their capacity to inspire. In fact, nothing speaks more to their humanity— and against the violence of racism—than the glimpse of their inner lives. The challenge, though, is to understand how their quiet works as a public gesture, without disregarding its interiority.— Kevin Quashie
Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
Episode 135: The Aesthetics and Poesis of Silence: A Conversation with Dr. Kevin Quashie Hosted by: Kevin Johnson With: Cassidy Hall, Carl McColman Guest: Kevin Quashie Date Recorded: March 3, 2021
Maisie Sparks: Enjoying God in the Silence
Jun 09, 2021
Episode 134: Enjoying God in the Silence: A Conversation with Maisie Sparks Hosted by: Carl McColman With: Cassidy Hall, Kevin Johnson Guest: Maisie Sparks Date Recorded: March 3, 2021
Encountering a New Silence with Dr. Beverly Lanzetta
May 05, 2021
My deepest experience of silence is interior. Silence is a state of being, a state of interior contemplation. — Dr. Beverly Lanzetta
Dr. Lanzetta is also a vowed monk of peace living in the world, who has formed a community of new monks—single, married, partnered, celibate, etc.—dedicated to the universal mystical heart and to the spirituality of nonviolence. She mentors people who seek a deeper contemplative commitment and who wish to take personal monastic vows. She has taught theology at Villanova University, Prescott College, and Grinnell College. Connect with Dr. Beverly Lanzetta online by visiting www.beverlylanzetta.net.
Silence is a very dynamic place; it’s not static, it’s a place of great creativity, of presence. That’s where I feel very happy, when I’m in that energy. — Dr. Beverly Lanzetta
Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
Episode 133: Encountering “A New Silence” with Dr. Beverly Lanzetta Hosted by: Carl McColman With: Cassidy Hall, Kevin Johnson Guest: Dr. Beverly Lanzetta Date Recorded: March 11, 2021
Sophfronia Scott: Silence, the Seeker, and the Monk
Apr 02, 2021
What if we truly belong to each other? What if we are all walking around shining like the sun Mystic, monk, and activist Thomas Merton asked those questions over half a century ago. Writer Sophfronia Scott is asking them today. Sophfronia Scott grew up in Lorain, Ohio, a hometown she shares with author Toni Morrison. She holds a BA in English from Harvard and an MFA in writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. She began her career as an award-winning magazine journalist for Time and People. When her first novel, All I Need to Get By, was published in 2004 Sophfronia was nominated for best new author at the African American Literary Awards. Her other books include the novel Unforgiveable Love, an essay collection titled Love's Long Line, and a memoir, This Child of Faith: Raising a Spiritual Child in a Secular World, co-written with her son. Her most recent book, The Seeker and the Monk: Everyday Conversations with Thomas Merton was published by Broadleaf books in March of 2021. In The Seeker and the Monk, Scott mines the extensive private journals of one of the most influential contemplative thinkers of the past for guidance on how to live in these fraught times. As a Black woman who is not Catholic, Scott both learns from and pushes back against Merton, holding spirited, and intimate conversations on race, ambition, faith, activism, nature, prayer, friendship, and love. She asks: What is the connection between contemplation and action? Is there ever such a thing as a wrong answer to a spiritual question? How do we care about the brutality in the world while not becoming overwhelmed by it? By engaging in this lively discourse, readers will gain a steady sense of how to dwell more deeply within--and even to love--this despairing and radiant world. Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
Episode 132: Silence, the Seeker, and the Monk: A Conversation with Sophfronia Scott Hosted by: Cassidy Hall With: Carl McColman, Kevin Johnson Guest: Sophfronia Scott Date Recorded: March 15, 2021
Barbara Brown Taylor: Silence, Vulnerability, and Love (Part Two)
Mar 17, 2021
This week's episode features the conclusion of our conversation with bestselling author and Episcopal priest Barbara Brown Taylor. Click here to listen to part one. Renowned for her preaching as well as her writing, Barbara Brown Taylor is the author of a widely acclaimed memoir, Leaving Church; subsequent books like An Altar in the World, Learning to Walk in the Dark, and Holy Envy have all earned places on the New York Times Bestseller list. In 1997 she delivered a series of lectures on the art of preaching at Yale Divinity School, later published under the title When God is Silent. Her most recent book, Always a Guest, was published in October 2020 by Westminster John Knox Press.
I've found that the minute I turn the radio off, my whole body relaxes. — Barbara Brown Taylor
Barbara Brown Taylor has served on the faculties of Piedmont College, Emory University, Mercer University, Columbia Seminary, Oblate School of Theology, and the Certificate in Theological Studies program at Arrendale State Prison for Women in Alto, Georgia. She has won numerous awards, including twice being named the Georgia Author of the Year in the category of inspirational writing. She lives on a farm in north Georgia with her husband. Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
Episode 131: Silence, Vulnerability and Love: A Conversation with Barbara Brown Taylor (Part Two) Hosted by: Carl McColman With: Cassidy Hall, Kevin Johnson Date Recorded: March 1, 2021
Barbara Brown Taylor: Silence, Vulnerability, and Love (Part One)
Mar 09, 2021
A while back, our co-host Carl McColman was impressed by a preacher he heard in Atlanta. In his words:
Back in the spring of 1988, I was living in Atlanta and on occasion would worship at All Saints’ Episcopal Church near the campus of Georgia Tech. On more than one occasion, I was impressed by the preaching of one of the associate priests on staff, the Reverend Barbara Brown Taylor. I never joined that church, and I don’t know that I ever even spoke to Taylor, but I remembered her — so that when, almost a decade later, Baylor University published a list of the 12 most effective preachers in the United States, I was not surprised to see Barbara Brown Taylor on the list.
Barbara Brown Taylor went from "renowned preacher" to "best-selling author" when her memoir about leaving parish ministry to become a college professor, Leaving Church, was met with widespread acclaim. Subsequent books like An Altar in the World, Learning to Walk in the Dark, and Holy Envy have all earned places on the New York Times Bestseller list. In 1997 she delivered a series of lectures on the art of preaching at Yale Divinity School, later published under the title When God is Silent. Her most recent book, Always a Guest, was published in October 2020 by Westminster John Knox Press.
Silence is a love language. — Barbara Brown Taylor
Barbara Brown Taylor has served on the faculties of Piedmont College, Emory University, Mercer University, Columbia Seminary, Oblate School of Theology, and the Certificate in Theological Studies program at Arrendale State Prison for Women in Alto, Georgia. She has won numerous awards, including twice being named the Georgia Author of the Year in the category of inspirational writing. She lives on a farm in north Georgia with her husband. Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
Episode 130: Silence, Vulnerability and Love: A Conversation with Barbara Brown Taylor (Part One) Hosted by: Carl McColman With: Cassidy Hall, Kevin Johnson Date Recorded: March 1, 2021
Encountering Silence and Contemplating Now
Feb 25, 2021
In this very first Episode of Contemplating Now, Cassidy Hall interviews previous guest of Encountering Silence, Therese Taylor-Stinson in a conversation titled, "Everybody Can Be A Mystic." “I think everybody can be a mystic… Mystic means you’re living with a certain amount of uncertainty.” –Therese Taylor-Stinson Therese is the co-editor of "Embodied Spirits: Stories of Spiritual Directors of Color," and the editor of "Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around — Stories of Contemplation and Justice." She is an ordained deacon and elder in the Presbyterian Church (PCUSA), a lay pastoral caregiver, and a graduate of and an associate faculty member of the Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation, where she previously served as a member of the board. She is the founder of the Spiritual Directors of Color Network, an international, ecumenical/interfaith association of persons of color with a ministry of spiritual accompaniment. A native of Washington DC, she now lives in Maryland. Her ministry, like her books, explores the intersection of contemplative spirituality and the ongoing struggle for social justice and the dismantling of racism. “We can all be getting in some trouble if we aren’t going along with the status quo.” –Therese Taylor-Stinson Introduction music: First Steps, by Cast Of CharactersContemplating Now music: Trapezoid Instrumental, by EmmoLei Sankofa Continue to follow Contemplating Now at theChristian Century, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
Silence in Sound: A Collection of Ambient Field Recordings
Feb 16, 2021
This episode of Encountering Silence is a little different from our regular format. Carl McColman gives co-hosts Cassidy Hall and Kevin Johnson the week off, and shares an assortment of field recordings — mostly, but not entirely, recordings of nature from a variety of locations, times of day, and times of year. All of these recordings were captured by either Carl or his wife Fran, using their iphones. These are recordings of birds in South Carolina, a waterfall in North Carolina, the surf on the Pacific coast of California, the wind whistling in Scotland, and many more. While mostly recordings of the natural world, there are human-made sounds as well, from the traffic of Atlanta, to an almost mystical art installation in London's Kew Gardens.[caption id="attachment_2475" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Fran and Carl McColman, McClures Beach, California, December 2018[/caption]So why, on a podcast devoted to speaking about silence, are we opting this episode for a collection of sound recordings? Even though they were recorded by amateurs, hopefully these ambient recordings are interesting and maybe even beautiful. But this is meant to be more than just an aesthetic experience.[caption id="attachment_2476" align="aligncenter" width="700"] Poster promoting the Hive at Kew Gardens[/caption]Carl notes, "I believe that silence is more just the absence of sound — that silence is also a state of mind, or perhaps a state of the heart. Silence is that place where we can be truly receptive to what life has to offer us, show us, and teach us. We need silence to listen to each other, and to listen to the still small voice of God within. My hope is that these field recordings will represent, for you, a chance to listen for the silence that exists even in the midst of nature’s sounds and songs. There’s silence in between the notes of a bird's song, in the pause of the rhythm of the surf, and in the midst of a babbling brook. So I invite you to listen for the silence between the sound waves — and maybe even in the midst of these ambient sounds." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoaRw-bKDhk McClures Beach, California, video by Fran McColman — one of the ambient field recordings collected in this episode of Encountering Silence.
Some resources related to places, etc. mentioned in this episode:
Episode 128: Encountering Silence in Sound: A Collection of Ambient Field Recordings Hosted by: Carl McColman Date Recorded: February 14, 2021 (field recordings at various dates)
Sarah Griffith Lund: Silence, Marriage and Mental Health (Part Two)
Feb 03, 2021
Today Sarah Griffith Lund returns to Encountering Silence. She is the senior pastor of First Congregational United Church of Christ in Indianapolis, and serves the United Church of Christ on a national level as the Minister for Disabilities and Mental Health Justice. She holds degrees from Trinity University, Princeton Theological Seminary, Rutgers University and McCormick Theological Seminary. Sarah Griffith Lund received the Bob and Joyce Dell Award for Mental Health Education from the United Church of Christ Mental Health Network in 2015 for “her outstanding authorship and leadership in breaking the silence about mental illness in family and in church and offering healing and hope.” Her latest book is Blessed Union: Breaking the Silence About Mental Illness and Marriage. She is also the author of Blessed Are the Crazy: Breaking the Silence about Mental Illness, Family and Church. She also maintains a blog at www.sarahgriffithlund.com.
The biggest barrier to receiving treatment, care and support is not money, it's not access to quality health care... it's the stigma and shame associated with mental health challenges. — Sarah Griffith Lund
Episode 127: Silence, Marriage and Mental Heath: A Conversation with Sarah Griffith Lund (Part Two) Hosted by: Carl McColman With: Cassidy Hall and Kevin Johnson Guest: Sarah Griffith Lund Date Recorded: January 11, 2021
Sarah Griffith Lund: Silence, Marriage and Mental Heath (Part One)
Jan 26, 2021
Today Sarah Griffith Lund returns to Encountering Silence. She is the senior pastor of First Congregational United Church of Christ in Indianapolis, and serves the United Church of Christ on a national level as the Minister for Disabilities and Mental Health Justice. She holds degrees from Trinity University, Princeton Theological Seminary, Rutgers University and McCormick Theological Seminary. Sarah Griffith Lund received the Bob and Joyce Dell Award for Mental Health Education from the United Church of Christ Mental Health Network in 2015 for “her outstanding authorship and leadership in breaking the silence about mental illness in family and in church and offering healing and hope.” Her latest book is Blessed Union: Breaking the Silence About Mental Illness and Marriage. She is also the author of Blessed are the Crazy: Breaking the Silence About Mental Illness, Family, and Church. She also maintains a blog at www.sarahgriffithlund.com.
Patrick Shen: Silence and the Dawn Chorus
Jan 12, 2021
Our good friend Patrick Shen returns to tell us about his latest project, "The Dawn Chorus."
Kaya Oakes, Silence, the Body, and Women Mystics (Part Two)
Jan 05, 2021
The conclusion of our conversation with writer Kaya Oakes. Click here to listen to part one. Essayist and journalist Kaya Oakes is the author of The Nones Are Alright: A New Generation of Believers, Seekers, and Those in Between, Radical Reinvention: An Unlikely Return to the Catholic Church, Slanted and Enchanted: The Evolution of Indie Culture, and a book of poetry, Telegraph. Her next book, Medieval: How Women who Don’t Fit in are Changing the World, is forthcoming from Broadleaf Books in 2021. Kaya’s essays and journalism have appeared in The New Republic, Slate, Foreign Policy, The Guardian, The Washington Post, Sojourners, National Catholic Reporter, Commonweal, Religion Dispatches, Tricycle, On Being, America, and many other publications. She was the co-founder of the award-winning arts and culture magazine Kitchen Sink, and is currently on the editorial board of the ground-breaking religion website Killing the Buddha. She teaches creative nonfiction, narrative journalism, expository and research writing at the University of California, Berkeley. You can find her online at www.oakestown.org. Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
Episode 124: Silence, the Body, and Women Mystics: A Conversation with Kaya Oakes (Part Two) Hosted by: Carl McColman With: Cassidy Hall, Kevin Johnson Guest: Kaya Oakes Date Recorded: November 30, 2020 Featured photo (University of California, Berkeley) by Eden Rushing.
Kaya Oakes, Silence, the Body, and Women Mystics (Part One)
Dec 29, 2020
Essayist and journalist Kaya Oakes is the author of The Nones Are Alright: A New Generation of Believers, Seekers, and Those in Between, Radical Reinvention: An Unlikely Return to the Catholic Church, Slanted and Enchanted: The Evolution of Indie Culture, and a book of poetry, Telegraph. Her next book, Medieval: How Women who Don’t Fit in are Changing the World, is forthcoming from Broadleaf Books in 2021. Kaya’s essays and journalism have appeared in The New Republic, Slate, Foreign Policy, The Guardian, The Washington Post, Sojourners, National Catholic Reporter, Commonweal, Religion Dispatches, Tricycle, On Being, America, and many other publications. She was the co-founder of the award-winning arts and culture magazine Kitchen Sink, and is currently on the editorial board of the ground-breaking religion website Killing the Buddha. She teaches creative nonfiction, narrative journalism, expository and research writing at the University of California, Berkeley. You can find her online at www.oakestown.org. Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
Episode 123: Silence, the Body, and Women Mystics: A Conversation with Kaya Oakes (Part One) Hosted by: Carl McColman With: Cassidy Hall, Kevin Johnson Guest: Kaya Oakes Date Recorded: November 30, 2020
Zenju Earthlyn Manuel: Silence, Ritual, and the Earth (Part Two)
Dec 08, 2020
The conclusion of our conversation with Zenju Earthlyn Manuel, Zen priest, author, and poet.
Zenju Earthlyn Manuel: Silence, Ritual, and the Earth (Part One)
Dec 01, 2020
This episode features part one of our conversation with Zen poet Zenju Earthlyn Manuel. Zenju Earthlyn Manuel is the author of numerous books, including The Deepest Peace: Contemplations from a Season of Stillness, Sanctuary: A Meditation on Home, Homelessness, and Belonging, The Way of Tenderness: Awakening through Race, Sexuality, and Gender, Tell Me Something about Buddhism: Questions and Answers for the Curious Beginner, Be Love: An Exploration of Our Deepest Desire and Still Breathing. Zenju was raised in the Church of Christ where she was an avid reader of the Bible and adored the true teachings on Christ’s path well into adulthood. She also participated in ceremony with Ifá diviners from Dahomey, Africa and studied Yoruba. She holds a Ph.D. and formally worked for decades as a social science researcher, development director for non-profit organizations and those serving women and girls, cultural arts, and mental health. She is the dharma heir of Buddha and the late Zenkei Blanche Hartman in the Shunryu Suzuki Roshi lineage through the San Francisco Zen Center (SFZC). She was Shuso (head Student) with Kiku Christina Lehnherr and her Dharma Transmission was completed by Shosan Victoria Austin. Zenju’s practice is influenced by Native American and African indigenous traditions. Finally, she is a lover of art, music, indie film, literature, and dance. Learn more about Zenju by visiting her website, www.zenju.org. Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
Episode 121: Silence, Ritual, and the Earth: A Conversation with Zenju Earthlyn Manuel (Part One) Hosted by: Kevin Johnson With: Carl McColman, Cassidy Hall Guest: Zenju Earthlyn Manuel Date Recorded: November 10, 2020
Emilie Townes: Silence, Storytelling, and Womanist Thought (Part Two)
Nov 17, 2020
Our conversation with Dean Emilie M. Townes concludes.
Emilie Townes: Silence, Storytelling, and Womanist Thought (Part One)
Nov 10, 2020
Today on Encountering Silence we present part one of our two-part interview with womanist theologian Dean Emilie M. Townes. Dr. Emilie M. Townes, an American Baptist clergywoman, is a native of Durham, North Carolina. She holds a Doctor of Ministry degree from the University of Chicago Divinity School and a Ph.D. in Religion in Society and Personality from Northwestern University. Dr. Townes is the Dean and Distinguished Professor of Womanist Ethics and Society at Vanderbilt University Divinity School, becoming the first African American to serve as Dean of the Divinity School in 2013. She is the former Andrew W. Mellon Professor of African American Religion and Theology at Yale University Divinity School and in the fall of 2005, she was the first African American woman elected to the presidential line of the American Academy of Religion (AAR) and served as president in 2008. She was the first African American and first woman to serve as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in the Yale Divinity School. She is the former Carolyn Williams Beaird Professor of Christian Ethics at Union Theological Seminary and Professor of Social Ethics at Saint Paul School of Theology.[caption id="attachment_2324" align="aligncenter" width="2560"] The Encountering Silence team in conversation with Dean Emilie M. Townes.[/caption]She edited two collection of essays, A Troubling in My Soul: Womanist Perspectives on Evil and Suffering and Embracing the Spirit: Womanist Perspectives on Hope, Salvation, and Transformation; she has also authored Womanist Justice, Womanist Hope, In a Blaze of Glory: Womanist Spirituality as Social Witness, Breaking the Fine Rain of Death: African American Health Issues and a Womanist Ethic of Care, and Womanist Ethics and the Cultural Production of Evil. She is co-editor (with Stephanie Y. Mitchem) of Faith, Health, and Healing in African American Life. She also co-edited Womanist Theological Ethics: A Reader in collaboration with the late Katie Geneva Cannon and Angela Sims. Townes was elected a Fellow in the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2009. She served a four-year term as president of the Society for the Study of Black Religion from 2012 to 2016.
Silence has been a comfort and also a warning. — Dean Emilie M. Townes
Dean Townes is featured in this video on the legacy of womanist theologians associated with Union Seminary. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PjhtUGqFCWg Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
Stacey Abrams, Our Time is Now: Power, Purpose and the Fight for a Fair America
Katie Cannon, Katie's Canon: Womanism and the Soul of the Black Community
Alice Walker, In Search of Our Mother's Gardens
Ida B. Wells, Crusade for Justice: The Autobiography of Ida B. Wells
James Cone, The Cross and the Lynching Tree
Patrick Shen (dir.), In Pursuit of Silence
Sonia Sanchez, haiku Shake Loose My Skin
Julie Dash, Daughters of the Dust
Episode 119: Silence, Storytelling, and Womanist Thought: A Conversation with Dr. Emilie M. Townes (Part One) Hosted by: Cassidy Hall With: Carl McColman, Kevin Johnson Guest: Emilie M. Townes Date Recorded: November 9, 2020
Marie Howe: Silence and the Depth of Poetry (Part Two)
Nov 03, 2020
The conclusion of our conversation with poet Marie Howe.
Marie Howe: Silence and the Depth of Poetry (Part One)
Oct 27, 2020
I do feel that people want community, they want to connect with each another. I just don't think we want dogma; we don't want anyone saying what something is, what it has to be. — Marie Howe
Cassidy says, “In my experience, Marie’s poetry has aways shown me the extraordinary in the moment at hand — whether that points me to pauses and internal silence while on the subway in NYC when I came across her poem ‘The Moment’ reminding me the the rush, slows to silence…” Or the embodied solidarity like I felt when I read ‘Magdalene on Gethsemane’ which reimagines what Jesus was really seeing in the garden the night before his torture and death — she writes that he ‘saw the others the countless in his name raped, burned, lynched, stoned, bombed, beheaded, shot, gassed, gutted and raped again….’”
How difficult it is to be in the presence of real joy. — Marie Howe
Marie joined us via Zoom from her home in Greenwich Village last June. With a poet’s eye and for imagery and ear for nuanced language, her thoughts on silence were both perceptive and beautiful. Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
I had a lot to learn; I had to learn to sit in a chair... to stay sitting in a chair was a triumph for me. I slowly began to learn that when I wanted to get up, that was the time to stay seated and keep writing. — Marie Howe
Episode 117: Silence and the Imaginal Realm: A Conversation with Marie Howe (Part One) Hosted by: Cassidy Hall With: Carl McColman, Kevin Johnson Guest: Marie Howe Date Recorded: June 1, 2020
Cynthia Bourgeault: Silence and the Imaginal Realm (Part Two)
Oct 20, 2020
Part Two of Our 2020 Conversation with Cynthia Bourgeault.
Cynthia Bourgeault: Silence and the Imaginal Realm (Part One)
Oct 13, 2020
Cynthia Bourgeault is a theologian, Episcopal priest, and core faculty member of the Center for Action and Contemplation's Living School. She also is the founding director of an international network of Wisdom Schools. She is the author of numerous books, including The Heart of Centering Prayer, Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening and The Wisdom Jesus. Her latest book is Eye of the Heart: A Spiritual Journey into the Imaginal Realm. This is part one of a two-part interview. Cynthia Bourgeault previously joined us on Encountering Silence (Episodes 58 and 59). As one of the most popular contemplative authors of our time, she offers a unique and distinctive approach to contemplatlive silence, grounded in Christianity yet radically informed by the wisdom of other traditions.
Rick Hanson: Silence, Buddhism and the Brain
Oct 06, 2020
Rick Hanson, PhD, is a psychologist, senior fellow of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley, and New York Times bestselling author. His books include Neurodharma, Resilient, Hardwiring Happiness, Just One Thing, Buddha’s Brain, and Mother Nurture. He has released an audio series called The Enlightened Brainand is the creator of the Just One Thing Card Deck. Rick is the founder of the Wellspring Institute for Neuroscience and Contemplative Wisdom, he has been an invited speaker at Google, NASA, Oxford, and Harvard, and taught in meditation centers worldwide. He has several online offerings—including the Neurodharma experiential program—and more than 150,000 people receive his free weekly newsletter. He and his wife live in Northern California and have two adult children.
Tell the truth about your suffering. — Rick Hanson, PhD
Rick joined us recently to share some insights into the science of silence, particularly in light of his work as a psychologist and practicing Buddhist.
Come home to yourself, to find your footing, over the course of a single breath. We know what that’s like… What’s it like to be me? And then in the middle of all that, finding what feels like refuge. Stabilizing, protective, refueling, renewing, refuge. — Rick Hanson, PhD
Some of the resources and authors mentioned in this episode:
Find a spiritual practice that really feels good… that you’re drawn to do it… that it feels good for the minute, or five minutes, or forty minutes that you do it; it’s calming, it’s restorative, it feels like home, and you like it. It adds value to you and it it’s good for you. — Rick Hanson, PhD
Episode 114 : Silence, Buddhism, and the Brain: A Conversation with Rick Hanson Hosted by: Carl McColman With: Cassiday Hall and Kevin Johnson Guest: Dr. Rick Hanson Date Recorded: May 18, 2020
Jim Forest: Silence, Protest, and Radical Love (Part Two)
Sep 29, 2020
Returning Guest Jim Forest is a noted author, biographer, photographer, peacemaker, and friend.
He is the author of numerous books, including most recently Writing Straight with Crooked Lines: A Memoir. Some of his previous titles include The Ladder of the Beatitudes, Loving Our Enemies: Reflections on the Hardest Commandment, and Praying with Icons. He has written several biographies, including All Is Grace: A Biography of Dorothy Day, Living with Wisdom: A Life of Thomas Merton and At Play in the Lions' Den: A Biography and Memoir of Daniel Berrigan.
This is part two of a two part episode. To listen to part one, click here.
Musician Joan Baez writes of Jim’s latest book, “Jim, my brother in nonviolent arms, writes beautifully about his dedication to truth, love, and activism.”
Jim Forest serves as the International Secretary of the Orthodox Peace Fellowship.
And he lives in Alkmaar, the Netherlands with his wife Nancy.
We tend to turn things into ideologies, and I find in general I'm an ideology-avoider. — Jim Forest
Cassidy Hall says this of her friendship with Jim and Nancy, "I got to meet Jim a few years ago when we crossed paths at Voices for Peace in Toronto and then we reconnected in The Netherlands. He and Nancy graciously hosted me — they housed me, fed me, and most importantly nurtured me spiritually. His humble, gentle, and kind presence makes any guest in his company feel like one of his dear friends."
By "his dear friends," Cassidy is alluding to the remarkable relationships that Jim has nurtured over the years, with some of the most significant spiritual leaders and activists of our time — people such as Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton, Daniel Berrigan, Henri Nouwen, and Thich Nhat Hanh. In his words and the witness of his life, Jim Forest reveals the power of relationship in all activist-oriented work.
This is part one of a two-part episode. Our next episode will feature the conclusion of this interview.
Some of the resources and authors mentioned in this episode:
Jim Forest, Writing Straight with Crooked Lines: A Memoir
Jim Forest, The Ladder of the Beatitudes
Jim Forest, Praying with Icons
Jim Forest, Road to Emmaus
Jim Forest, Living with Wisdom: A Life of Thomas Merton
Jim Forest, All is Grace: A Biography of Dorothy Day
Jim Forest, At Play in the Lion’s Den: A Biography and Memoir of Daniel Berrigan
Jim Forest, The Root of War is Fear: Thomas Merton’s Advice to Peacemakers
Jim Forest, Saint George and the Dragon
Jim Forest, Saint Nicholas and the Nine Gold Coins
Jim Forest, Silent as a Stone: Mother Maria of Paris and the Trash Can Rescue
Joan Baez, And A Voice to Sing With: A Memoir
Daniel Berrigan, Essential Writings
Dorothy Day, Loaves and Fishes
Dorothy Day, The Long Loneliness
Jane Brox, Silence: A Social History of One of the Least Understood Elements in Our Lives
Henri Nouwen, Reaching Out
Hillary Rodham Clinton, It Takes a Village
Vincent Van Gogh, Dear Theo
Fyodor Dostoevsky, Notes from Underground
Robert Ellsberg, ed., Dorothy Day: Selected Writings
Vladimir Menshov (dir.), Moscow Does Not Believe in Tears
Mikhail Gorbachev, What is at Stake
Thomas Merton, Essential Writings
Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude
Visit Jim and Nancy Forest’s website www.jimandnancyforest.com.
Episode 113 : Silence, Protest, and Radical Love: A Conversation with Jim Forest (Part Two)
Hosted by: Cassidy Hall
With: Carl McColman and Kevin Johnson
Guest: Jim Forest
Date Recorded: September 10, 2020
Featured photo: Jim Forest with Thich Nhat Hanh, 1980s. Photographer unknown.
Jim Forest: Silence, Protest, and Radical Love (Part One)
Sep 22, 2020
Returning Guest Jim Forest is a noted author, biographer, photographer, peacemaker, and friend.
He is the author of numerous books, including most recently Writing Straight with Crooked Lines: A Memoir. Some of his previous titles include The Ladder of the Beatitudes, Loving Our Enemies: Reflections on the Hardest Commandment, and Praying with Icons. He has written several biographies, including All Is Grace: A Biography of Dorothy Day, Living with Wisdom: A Life of Thomas Merton and At Play in the Lions' Den: A Biography and Memoir of Daniel Berrigan.
Musician Joan Baez writes of Jim’s latest book, “Jim, my brother in nonviolent arms, writes beautifully about his dedication to truth, love, and activism.”
Jim Forest serves as the International Secretary of the Orthodox Peace Fellowship.
And he lives in Alkmaar, the Netherlands with his wife Nancy.
Dorothy Day used to say, 'Hope is a duty, not an option.' It's an obligation. — Jim Forest
Cassidy Hall says this of her friendship with Jim and Nancy, "I got to meet Jim a few years ago when we crossed paths at Voices for Peace in Toronto and then we reconnected in The Netherlands. He and Nancy graciously hosted me — they housed me, fed me, and most importantly nurtured me spiritually. His humble, gentle, and kind presence makes any guest in his company feel like one of his dear friends."
By "his dear friends," Cassidy is alluding to the remarkable relationships that Jim has nurtured over the years, with some of the most significant spiritual leaders and activists of our time — people such as Dorothy Day, Thomas Merton, Daniel Berrigan, Henri Nouwen, and Thich Nhat Hanh. In his words and the witness of his life, Jim Forest reveals the power of relationship in all activist-oriented work.
This is part one of a two-part episode. Our next episode will feature the conclusion of this interview.
When you say the same things every Sunday, it becomes silence... Far from being infinitely boring, it becomes infinitely alive. — Jim Forest
Some of the resources and authors mentioned in this episode:
Jim Forest, Writing Straight with Crooked Lines: A Memoir
Jim Forest, The Ladder of the Beatitudes
Jim Forest, Praying with Icons
Jim Forest, Road to Emmaus
Jim Forest, Living with Wisdom: A Life of Thomas Merton
Jim Forest, All is Grace: A Biography of Dorothy Day
Jim Forest, At Play in the Lion’s Den: A Biography and Memoir of Daniel Berrigan
Jim Forest, The Root of War is Fear: Thomas Merton’s Advice to Peacemakers
Jim Forest, Saint George and the Dragon
Jim Forest, Saint Nicholas and the Nine Gold Coins
Jim Forest, Silent as a Stone: Mother Maria of Paris and the Trash Can Rescue
Joan Baez, And A Voice to Sing With: A Memoir
Thomas Merton, Essential Writings
Thomas Merton, The Literary Essays
Dorothy Day, Loaves and Fishes
Dorothy Day, The Long Loneliness
Henri Nouwen, Reaching Out
Daniel Berrigan, Essential Writings
Thich Nhat Hanh, Essential Writings
Boris Pasternak, Doctor Zhivago
Franz Jägerstätter, Letters and Writings from Prison
Terence Malick, A Hidden Life
Visit Jim and Nancy Forest’s website www.jimandnancyforest.com.
Protest alone will not keep you going. — Jim Forest
Episode 112 : Silence, Protest, and Radical Love: A Conversation with Jim Forest (Part One)
Hosted by: Cassidy Hall
With: Carl McColman and Kevin Johnson
Guest: Jim Forest
Special Guest: Nancy Forest-Flier
Date Recorded: September 10, 2020
Paul Quenon, OCSO: Silence, Poetry and Monastic Wisdom (Part Two)
Sep 15, 2020
Brother Paul Quenon, OCSO, Trappist monk, poet, and photographer, is the author of books like In Praise of the Useless Life: A Monk's Memoir and Unquiet Vigil: New and Selected Poems. He returned to Encountering Silence for a conversation recorded last April (to hear his previous conversations on this podcast, click here and here). In this episode he speaks about the spirituality of nature, how God sometimes feels absent, and the challenge of being a poet in a time of dejection.
This is part two of a two-part interview. To listen to part one, click here.
Nature for me is very congenial... the birds are my teachers, they always seem to be exhilarated, no matter how bad the world is, they're singing that same tune, and it picks up the heart: there's something larger than ourselves and our concerns. — Br. Paul Quenon, OCSO
Brother Paul entered monastic life in 1958, when he was only 17 years old — back before the reforms of the Second Vatical Council, when the life of a Trappist was even more austere than it is today. His novice master turned out to be Thomas Merton, who eventually became an inspiration to Brother Paul not only as a monk, but as a writer.
It might be a mistake to seek the fullness of God. God, to our perception, is more like nothing, nothingness and emptiness. You have to allow God to manifest the way God will. Sometimes it's consoling, sometimes you feel a presence... on the other hand, sometimes you just have to prepare yourself to the reality that God does not speak sometimes. — Brother Paul Quenon, OCSO
Some of the resources and authors mentioned in this episode:
Paul Quenon, Amounting to Nothing
Paul Quenon, In Praise of the Useless Life: A Monk's Memoir
Paul Quenon, Unquiet Vigil: New and Selected Poems
Paul Quenon, Bells of the Hours
Paul Quenon, Afternoons with Emily
Paul Quenon, Monkswear
Paul Quenon, Laughter: My Purgatory
Paul Quenon, Terrors of Paradise
Paul Quenon with Judith Valente and Michael Bever, The Art of Pausing
Julian of Norwich, The Showings of Julian of Norwich: A New Translation
Eugene Peterson, Earth & Altar: The Community of Prayer in a Self-Bound Society
Saint Benedict, The Rule of Saint Benedict
The Buddha, Teachings of the Buddha
Daniel C. Walsh, Correspondence
Thomas Merton, Essential Writings
The Beatles, Sergeant Peppers' Lonely Hearts Club Band
Matthew Kelty, Singing For The Kingdom: The Last of the Homilies
I think a lot of people are feeling very dejected, at a loss, and maybe what the Lord wants me to do is feel at a loss with them. — Br. Paul Quenon, OCSO
Episode 111: Silence, Poetry, and Monastic Wisdom: A Conversation with Brother Paul Quenon, OCSO (Part Two)
Hosted by: Cassidy Hall
With: Carl McColman and Kevin Johnson
Guest: Br. Paul Quenon, OCSO
Date Recorded: April 30, 2020
Paul Quenon, OCSO: Silence, Poetry and Monastic Wisdom (Part One)
Sep 09, 2020
Brother Paul Quenon, OCSO, Trappist monk, poet, and photographer, is the author of books like In Praise of the Useless Life: A Monk's Memoir and Unquiet Vigil: New and Selected Poems. He returned to Encountering Silence for a conversation recorded last April (to hear his previous conversations on this podcast, click here and here). This time, he offers a fascinating conversation drawing lines of connection between the monk's experience of cloistered solitude and the challenges that the public at large has faced during the COVID-19 pandemic.
I think there's something within everybody that really wants to have quiet time... There's something about the heart that thirsts for that kind of quiet and silence. — Br. Paul Quenon, OCSO
Brother Paul entered monastic life in 1958, when he was only 17 years old — back before the reforms of the Second Vatical Council, when the life of a Trappist was even more austere than it is today. His novice master turned out to be Thomas Merton, who eventually became an inspiration to Brother Paul not only as a monk, but as a writer.
Here's a video of Brother Paul reading one of his poems, from our conversation this year:
https://vimeo.com/413749815
A habit can be a very supportive thing, a routine can be a deadening thing a ritual should always be a vital thing and should always be done mindfully. — Brother Paul Quenon, OCSO
Some of the resources and authors mentioned in this episode:
Paul Quenon, In Praise of the Useless Life: A Monk's Memoir
Paul Quenon, Unquiet Vigil: New and Selected Poems
Paul Quenon, Bells of the Hours
Paul Quenon, Afternoons with Emily
Paul Quenon, Monkswear
Paul Quenon, Laughter: My Purgatory
Paul Quenon, Terrors of Paradise
Paul Quenon with Judith Valente and Michael Bever, The Art of Pausing
Thomas Merton, Essential Writings
Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude
Greg Hillis, Bodhisattva
Emily Dickinson, The Complete Poems, edited by Thomas H. Johnson
Marty Gervais, Nine Lives: A Reunion in Paris
Wallace Stevens, The Collected Poems
T.S. Eliot, The Complete Poems and Plays
Ignatius of Loyola, Personal Writings
In a monastery you're living in a poetic environment, and the countryside that we live in, I think it exposes the mind to open up to poetry. — Br. Paul Quenon, OCSO
Episode 110: Silence, Poetry, and Monastic Wisdom: A Conversation with Brother Paul Quenon, OCSO (Part One)
Hosted by: Cassidy Hall
With: Carl McColman and Kevin Johnson
Guest: Br. Paul Quenon, OCSO
Date Recorded: April 30, 2020
Dr. Leah Gunning Francis: Silence, Ferguson, and Faith (Part Two)
Aug 18, 2020
In this episode we conclude our conversation with Dr. Leah Gunning Francis, the Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the Faculty at Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis, Indiana.
This is part two of a two-part episode. Click here to listen to part one.
During the Ferguson uprising in 2014, Dr. Gunning Francis was serving as the Associate Dean for Contextual Education and Assistant Professor of Christian Education at Eden Theological Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri. As a result, Dr. Gunning Francis wrote the book Ferguson & Faith: Sparking Leadership and Awakening Community. In the book, She interviewed more than two dozen clergy and young activists who were actively involved in the movement for racial justice in Ferguson and beyond.
Dr. Gunning Francis earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Marketing from Hampton University; a Master of Divinity degree from the Candler School of Theology; and a Doctor of Philosophy degree from Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary.
White supremacy has disembodied the white body... White supremacy has disembodied and disconnected white people from the very bodies they inhabit. — Dr. Leah Gunning Francis
A native of New Jersey, Dr. Gunning Francis is married to Rev. Rodney Francis and they live in Indianapolis with their tween-aged children.
In the end of her book, she writes a message as relevant today as it was during her book’s release in 2015: “The fight for racial justice emerges out of the fight for human dignity. If there is any group of people who should be compelled to join this fight, it is the people who call themselves, “children of God.” Staying awake to the injustices that have been revealed through the Ferguson-related events is a critical task for communities fo faith. Our connectedness to our brothers and sisters is rooted in our connectedness to God, for we are all God’s children. And, in the words of the Civil Rights freedom fighter Ella Baker: “Until the killing of black men, black mothers’ sons, becomes as important to the rest of the country as the killing of a white mother’s son—we who believe in freedom cannot rest until this happens.”
Learn more about Dr. Gunning Francis by visiting www.leahgunningfrancis.com.
This isn't the time to retreat into silence... This is the very time where you as a well-meaning individual need to look right in your circle of influence and start broaching what can be seen as difficult conversations, to say we can't keep pretending that black people are valued in this county in the same way as white people. We have to look around and see how we can influence the change, right where we are, in our neighborhoods, in our churches, faith communities, schools, mom's groups, all these various kinds of spaces need to hear a voice for black lives. — Dr. Leah Gunning Francis
Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
Leah Gunning Francis, Ferguson & Faith: Sparking Leadership and Awakening Community
Leah Gunning Francis, Faith Following Ferguson: Five Years of Resilience and Wisdom
Carol Anderson, White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide
When you teach your children not to see color, you teach them not to see me or anybody else. — Dr. Leah Gunning Francis
Episode 109: Silence, Ferguson, and Faith (Part One): A Conversation with Dr. Leah Gunning Francis (Part Two)
Hosted by: Cassidy Hall
With: Carl McColman and Kevin Johnson
Guest: Dr. Leah Gunning Francis
Date Recorded: July 28, 2020
Dr. Leah Gunning Francis: Silence, Ferguson, and Faith (Part One)
Aug 03, 2020
Dr. Leah Gunning Francis is the Vice President for Academic Affairs and Dean of the Faculty at Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis, Indiana.
During the Ferguson uprising in 2014, Dr. Gunning Francis was serving as the Associate Dean for Contextual Education and Assistant Professor of Christian Education at Eden Theological Seminary in St. Louis, Missouri. As a result, Dr. Gunning Francis wrote the book Ferguson & Faith: Sparking Leadership and Awakening Community. In the book, She interviewed more than two dozen clergy and young activists who were actively involved in the movement for racial justice in Ferguson and beyond.
Dr. Gunning Francis earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Marketing from Hampton University; a Master of Divinity degree from the Candler School of Theology; and a Doctor of Philosophy degree from Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary.
We can not be silent to the racial injustice in our time. — Dr. Leah Gunning Francis
A native of New Jersey, Dr. Gunning Francis is married to Rev. Rodney Francis and they live in Indianapolis with their tween-aged children.
In the end of her book, she writes a message as relevant today as it was during her book’s release in 2015: “The fight for racial justice emerges out of the fight for human dignity. If there is any group of people who should be compelled to join this fight, it is the people who call themselves, “children of God.” Staying awake to the injustices that have been revealed through the Ferguson-related events is a critical task for communities fo faith. Our connectedness to our brothers and sisters is rooted in our connectedness to God, for we are all God’s children. And, in the words of the Civil Rights freedom fighter Ella Baker: “Until the killing of black men, black mothers’ sons, becomes as important to the rest of the country as the killing of a white mother’s son—we who believe in freedom cannot rest until this happens.”
Learn more about Dr. Gunning Francis by visiting www.leahgunningfrancis.com.
This is part one of a two-part episode. Part two will be released later this month.
Look for the leader within. — Dr. Leah Gunning Francis
Here is a video produced to introduce readers to Ferguson and Faith.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sgcIJ3GvKss
Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
Leah Gunning Francis, Ferguson & Faith: Sparking Leadership and Awakening Community
Leah Gunning Francis, Faith Following Ferguson: Five Years of Resilience and Wisdom
John O'Donohue, Eternal Echoes: Celtic Reflections on Our Yearning to Belong
White supremacy has disembodied the white body. — Dr. Leah Gunning Francis
Episode 108: Silence, Ferguson, and Faith (Part One): A Conversation with Dr. Leah Gunning Francis (Part One)
Hosted by: Cassidy Hall
With: Carl McColman and Kevin Johnson
Guest: Dr. Leah Gunning Francis
Date Recorded: July 28, 2020
Featured photograph by Cassidy Hall.
Sarah Lund: Silence and Mental Health in the Church (Part Two)
Jul 20, 2020
The Reverend Doctor Sarah Griffith Lund is the author of Blessed Are the Crazy: Breaking the Silence about Mental Illness, Family and Church. She is an ordained minister and has served as pastor to churches in Brooklyn, NY, Minneapolis, MN, and New Smyrna Beach, FL. She holds degrees from Trinity University, Princeton Theological Seminary, Rutgers University, and McCormick Theological Seminary.
This is part two of a two-part episode. To listen to part one, click here.
She is on the leadership team for Bethany Ecumenical Fellows, a mentoring program for young clergy, and serves as the Vice Chair for the United Church of Christ Mental Health Network. Dr. Lund received the Dell Award for Mental Health Education at the 30th General Synod of the UCC. She currently serves as a Vice President for Advancement at Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis, IN. You can get to know her better by reading her blog at www.sarahgriffithlund.com.
Our society and our church is ableist. We have a preference for people who are able-bodied. And so when we view candidates for ministry who have a physical disability, we are biased, and we automatically think that they are not able. — Sarah Griffith Lund.
Here is a video produced to introduce readers to Blessed Are the Crazy.
As a pastor I have started a monthly day of prayer where I go to a local retreat center and have a day of silence. I find that that's really crucial for my own sense of grounding and creating space to discern and to listen to the spirit. — Sarah Griffith Lund
Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
Sarah Griffith Lund, Blessed Are the Crazy: Breaking the Silence about Mental Illness, Family and Church
Michel Foucault, Madness and Civilization: A History of Insanity in the Age of Reason
Nancy L. Eiesland, The Disabled God: Toward a Liberatory Theology of Disability
Martin Luther King Jr., Strength to Love
Richard Rohr, The Universal Christ: How a Forgotten Reality Can Change Everything We See, Hope For, and Believe
Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation
Silence, in order for it to feel safe for a lot of us, needs to have a host — a person who holds that silence, and who is hosting our visit. — Sarah Griffith Lund
Episode 107: Silence, Mental Health, and the Church: A Conversation with Sarah Griffith Lund (Part Two)
Hosted by: Cassidy Hall
With: Carl McColman and Kevin Johnson
Guest: Sarah Griffith Lund
Date Recorded: April 14, 2020
Sarah Lund: Silence and Mental Illness in the Church (Part One)
Jul 06, 2020
The Reverend Doctor Sarah Griffith Lund is the author of Blessed Are the Crazy: Breaking the Silence about Mental Illness, Family and Church. She is an ordained minister and has served as pastor to churches in Brooklyn, NY, Minneapolis, MN, and New Smyrna Beach, FL. She holds degrees from Trinity University, Princeton Theological Seminary, Rutgers University, and McCormick Theological Seminary.
She is on the leadership team for Bethany Ecumenical Fellows, a mentoring program for young clergy, and serves as the Vice Chair for the United Church of Christ Mental Health Network. Dr. Lund received the Dell Award for Mental Health Education at the 30th General Synod of the UCC. She currently serves as a Vice President for Advancement at Christian Theological Seminary in Indianapolis, IN. You can get to know her better by reading her blog at www.sarahgriffithlund.com.
This is part one of a two-part episode. To hear part two, click here.
Here is a video produced to introduce readers to Blessed Are the Crazy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=anAW2ZqsejE&app=desktop
Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
Sarah Griffith Lund, Blessed Are the Crazy: Breaking the Silence about Mental Illness, Family and Church
Joan of Arc, Joan of Arc: By Herself and Her Witnesses
Julian of Norwich, The Showings of Julian of Norwich: A New Translation
Alice Walker, In Search of Our Mothers' Gardens: Womanist Prose
Toni Morrison, The Source of Self-Regard
Ignatius of Loyola, Personal Writings
Teresa of Ávila, The Book of My Life
The Desert Fathers and Mothers, Early Christian Wisdom Sayings
John Cassian, The Conferences
Augustine of Hippo, Confessions
Anna Carter Florence, Preaching as Testimony
Episode 106: Silence, Mental Illness, and the Church: A Conversation with Sarah Griffith Lund (Part One)
Hosted by: Cassidy Hall
With: Carl McColman and Kevin Johnson
Guest: Sarah Griffith Lund
Date Recorded: April 14, 2020
Featured photo (frog) by Crystal McClernon on Unsplash.
Kaitlin Curtice: Silence, Faith, and Indigenous Culture (Part Two)
Jun 22, 2020
Kaitlin B. Curtice is a member of the Potawatomi Nation, as well as a Christian, public speaker, and poet. She is the author of Native: Identity, Belonging, and Rediscovering God, which has been highly praised by Barbara Brown Taylor ("Kaitlin Curtice is one of the braver writers I know. She won't smooth any edges for you, and she won't let you change the subject, but she'll support you digging as deeply for your roots as she has for hers.") and Richard Rohr ("Curtice is a brave truth-teller and a prophetic voice we need to be listening to, and Native is a book that will guide us toward a better future"). Kaitlin is also the author of Glory Happening: Finding the Divine in Everyday Places.
This is part two of a two part episode. To listen to part one, click here.
She travels widely, speaking on matters of faith and justice within the church as it relates to indigenous peoples, and has been a featured speaker at conferences such as Why Christian, Evolving Faith, the Wild Goose, and the Festival of Faith and Writing. Kaitlin B. Curtice is a monthly columnist for Sojourners, has contributed to On Being and Religious News Service, and has been featured on CBS and in USA Today and the New Yorker for her work on having difficult conversations within the church about colonization. You can learn more about her and explore her blog at www.kaitlincurtice.com.
You don't have to have children to believe in the next generation. We all should be caretakers of each other's children, no matter who we are. — Kaitlin B. Curtice
Universally, as humans, we belong to the earth... as children, we are born with this longing to connect to the earth... we have to take ourselves — Kaitlin B. Curtice
Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
Kaitlin B. Curtice, Native: Identity, Belonging, and Rediscovering God
Kaitlin B. Curtice, Glory Happening: Finding the Divine in Everyday Places
Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants
Richard Twiss, One Church Many Tribes: Following Jesus the Way God Made You
Peter Rollins, How (Not) to Speak of God
Brian McLaren, A Generous Orthodoxy
Clarissa Pinkola Estés, Women Who Run with the Wolves: Myths and Stories of the Wild Woman Archetype
Richard Wagamese, One Story, One Song
Dara Molloy, The Globalization of God: Celtic Christianity's Nemesis
Richard Rohr, What Do We Do With the Bible?
St. Francis of Assisi, The Complete Francis of Assisi
Mirabai Starr, Wild Mercy: Living the Fierce and Tender Wisdom of the Women Mystics
Episode 105: Silence, Faith, and Indigenous Culture: A Conversation with Kaitlin B. Curtice (Part Two)
Hosted by: Carl McColman
With: Cassidy Hall and Kevin Johnson
Guest: Kaitlin B. Curtice
Date Recorded: April 20, 2020
Featured photo by Srikanth Peetha on Unsplash.
Kaitlin Curtice: Silence, Faith, and Indigenous Culture (Part One)
Jun 16, 2020
Kaitlin B. Curtice is a member of the Potawatomi Nation, as well as a Christian, public speaker, and poet. She is the author of Native: Identity, Belonging, and Rediscovering God, which has been highly praised by Barbara Brown Taylor ("Kaitlin Curtice is one of the braver writers I know. She won't smooth any edges for you, and she won't let you change the subject, but she'll support you digging as deeply for your roots as she has for hers.") and Richard Rohr ("Curtice is a brave truth-teller and a prophetic voice we need to be listening to, and Native is a book that will guide us toward a better future"). Kaitlin is also the author of Glory Happening: Finding the Divine in Everyday Places.
This is part one of a two part episode. Part Two will be released on June 22, 2020.
She travels widely, speaking on matters of faith and justice within the church as it relates to indigenous peoples, and has been a featured speaker at conferences such as Why Christian, Evolving Faith, the Wild Goose, and the Festival of Faith and Writing. Kaitlin B. Curtice is a monthly columnist for Sojourners, has contributed to On Being and Religious News Service, and has been featured on CBS and in USA Today and the New Yorker for her work on having difficult conversations within the church about colonization. You can learn more about her and explore her blog at www.kaitlincurtice.com.
If my identity as an indigenous person matters, whatever my spirituality is... it has to be tied to breaking apart systems of colonization if I'm going to be a person that is made to love others. — Kaitlin B. Curtice
Being outside... isn't perfect silence, but it's silence with the sounds of what nature offers us, and I think that is a kind of silence, because it quiets us, and it allows us to hear something other than ourselves... that's the deep well that I draw from. — Kaitlin B. Curtice
Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
Kaitlin B. Curtice, Native: Identity, Belonging, and Rediscovering God
Kaitlin B. Curtice, Glory Happening: Finding the Divine in Everyday Places.
Richard Rohr, What Do We Do With the Bible?
Gregory Alan Isakov, This Empty Northern Hemisphere
Kerry Connelly, Good White Racist? Confronting Your Role in Racial Injustice
Episode 104: Silence, Faith, and Indigenous Culture: A Conversation with Kaitlin B. Curtice (Part One)
Hosted by: Carl McColman
With: Cassidy Hall and Kevin Johnson
Guest: Kaitlin B. Curtice
Date Recorded: April 20, 2020
Featured photo by Karim Sakhibgareev on Unsplash.
Lerita Coleman Brown, PhD: Silence, the Disinherited, and the Wisdom of Howard Thurman for Our Time
Jun 09, 2020
One of the first guests on this podcast was Dr. Lerita Coleman Brown, who joined us on our episode #9 in 2018. Today we are delighted to welcome her back to the podcast. You can hear Professor Brown's previous conversation with us here.
Lerita Coleman Brown, PhD is the author of When the Heart Speaks, Listen: Discovering Inner Wisdom, detailing her remarkable spiritual journey as a heart transplant recipient. She has also contributed essays to books including Embodied Spirits: Stories of Spiritual Directors of Color, Living Into God’s Dream: Dismantling Racism in America, and Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around — Stories of Contemplation and Justice.
Professor Brown is the Ayse I. Carden Distinguished Professor Emerita of Psychology at Agnes Scott College. She has survived over 25 years with her transplanted heart, and 14 years with a transplanted kidney as well. She has also endured a heart valve replacement and a pacemaker implant. In addition to her work as a psychologist and educator, she is a spiritual director and retreat leader who often shares her love for the contemplative wisdom of the renowned African-American mystic, Howard Thurman. You can learn more about her online at www.peaceforhearts.com.
Our answers are in the silence. — Lerita Coleman Brown, PhD
Given the extraordinary moment that we find ourselves in, and especially our commitment here at the podcast not only to celebrate the gift of silence (and to dismantle all forms of toxic silence, including racism), it seemed natural to invite Lerita back — not only for her insight into the towering contemplative genius of Thurman, but also for her own perceptive words of wisdom about how we can spiritually navigate the urgency for fighting racism and other forms of injustice in our time.
One of the problems with white and black is that they're totally constructed sociopolitical identities... disinherited people have no protection from the state. — Lerita Coleman Brown, PhD
Dr. Lerita Coleman Brown with 2/3 of Encountering Silence. Left: with Cassidy at the Wild Goose Festival, 2019. Right: with Carl, 2018. (photos by Cassidy Hall and Fran McColman)
You've got to be able to center down and feel that sense of renewal from the Spirit, and I think it's really important to learn to listen... We're all called to do something to help restore God's beloved creation... Every single person has a role to play. What is your role in this? — Lerita Coleman Brown, PhD
Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
Lerita Coleman Brown, When the Heart Speaks, Listen: Discovering Inner Wisdom
Sherry Bryant-Johnson (ed.), Embodied Spirits: Stories of Spiritual Directors of Color
Cathering Meeks (ed.), Living Into God’s Dream: Dismantling Racism in America
Therese Taylor-Stinson (ed.), Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around — Stories of Contemplation and Justice
Howard Thurman, Essential Writings
Howard Thurman, Jesus and the Disinherited
Howard Thurman, The Living Wisdom of Howard Thurman: A Visionary for Our Time (audio recordings of sermons on a 6-CD set)
Howard Thurman, Meditations of the Heart
Howard Thurman, The Centering Moment
Howard Thurman, Disciplines of the Spirit
Howard Thurman, Footprints of a Dream
Howard Thurman, The Luminous Darkness
Howard Thurman, The Creative Encounter
Howard Thurman, Deep is the Hunger
Howard Thurman, The Papers of Howard Washington Thurman
Volume One
Volume Two
Volume Three
Volume Four
Volume Five
Howard Thurman, The Inward Journey
Howard Thurman, A Strange Freedom
Howard Thurman, With Head and Heart: The Autobiography of Howard Thurman
Martin Doblmeier (director), Backs Against the Wall: The Howard Thurman Story (DVD)
Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation
Billy Graham, Angels
Gustavo Gutierrez, A Theology of Liberation
James Cone, The Cross and the Lynching Tree
Luther Smith, Jr.,
Kerry Connelly: Silence, Privilege, and Dismantling Racism (Part Two)
Jun 01, 2020
This episode continues our conversation with blogger/activist Kerry Connelly. As in part one of this interview, we explore one of the most pervasive forms of toxic silence in our culture: the silence embedded in white privilege and systemic racism.
Kerry Connelly is a writer, certified life coach, creator of the no-nonsense blog Jerseygirl, JESUS, and host of the "White on White" podcast, which reimagines white identity apart from the dead end of pseudo-supremacy.
This is part two of a two-part episode. To listen to part one, click here.
Her latest book is Good White Racist? Confronting Your Role in Racial Injustice. Kerry Connelly is currently pursuing a Master of Divinity at Christian Theological Seminary (where she first met Cassidy Hall). She lives in New Jersey with her family.
I have to always be aware, practice awareness of who's in the room, what's happening, and what might be my call as a white anti-racist in that particular context, and it's not always going to be the same, there's not one answer. — Kerry Connelly
Dr. Robyn Henderson-Espinoza (who has also been a guest on this podcast) praised Good White Racist? by saying, “The work that needs to be done is white-on-white race talk. By that I mean, white folks talking to white folks about the ways white supremacy is internalized and therefore shows up in their social practice. Kerry endeavors to do just this, and I think we all should invest our time in this book!”
I don't recommend getting involved with Jesus if you don't want to be radically challenged... I can't be in relationship with Jesus and then be permitted to go about propping up the status quo. — Kerry Connelly
Some of the resources and authors mentioned in this episode:
Kerry Connelly, Good White Racist? Confronting Your Role in Racial Injustice
Therese Taylor-Stinson (ed.), Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around — Stories of Contemplation and Justice
The Buddha, Teachings of the Buddha edited by Jack Kornfield
The Desert Mothers and Fathers, Early Christian Wisdom Sayings
Ruby Sales, The Inner Life of Social Change
Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace
George Stephanopoulos, All Too Human: A Political Education
The Matrix
Kenneth Leech, Soul Friend: Spiritual Direction in the Modern World
Kenneth Leech, True Prayer: An Invitation to Christian Spirituality
Kenneth Leech, Experiencing God: Theology as Spirituality
Jennifer Worth, The Complete Call the Midwife Stories
Find Kerry Connelly at www.kerryconnelly.com.
I wonder what it must have been like, to have been Jesus, and be embodied in the way Jesus was embodied, and then experience that kind of silence in the desert... to be in that place, and to think about silence in that context, is a little mind-blowing. — Kerry Connelly
Episode 102: Silence, Privilege, and Dismantling Racism: A Conversation with Kerry Connelly (Part Two)
Hosted by: Cassidy Hall
With: Kevin Johnson, Carl McColman
Guest: Kerry Connelly
Date Recorded: April 13, 2020
Featured image photo by Cassidy Hall.
Kerry Connelly: Silence, Privilege, and Dismantling Racism (Part One)
May 25, 2020
On this podcast we often explore the toxic side of silence. In this episode we explore one of the most pervasive forms of toxic silence in our culture: the silence embedded in white privilege and systemic racism. Guiding us in this exploration is author Kerry Connelly.
Kerry Connelly is a writer, certified life coach, creator of the no-nonsense blog Jerseygirl, JESUS, and host of the "White on White" podcast, which reimagines white identity apart from the dead end of pseudo-supremacy.
Her latest book is Good White Racist? Confronting Your Role in Racial Injustice. Kerry Connelly is currently pursuing a Master of Divinity at Christian Theological Seminary (where she first met Cassidy Hall). She lives in New Jersey with her family.
I am much more of an actor, a doer, a go out and push — and that's something that I have to work to heal a little bit in myself, through silence. — Kerry Connelly
Dr. Robyn Henderson-Espinoza (who has also been a guest on this podcast) praised Good White Racist? by saying, “The work that needs to be done is white-on-white race talk. By that I mean, white folks talking to white folks about the ways white supremacy is internalized and therefore shows up in their social practice. Kerry endeavors to do just this, and I think we all should invest our time in this book!”
This is part one of a two-part episode. Click here to listen to part two.
A systemic example of white silence is, for example, the way that we as a society will gaslight people of color who are trying to call out racism, and the Take a Knee movement is a great example of that. The Take a Knee movement is a perfect example of people of color attempting to peacefully bring attention to a very specific result of systemic racism in our country, which is police brutality, and white people will talk about everything but the issue at hand — we will talk about the flag, we will talk about our soldiers, we will talk about national pride, we will talk about patriotism... but we refuse, we insist upon remaining silent about discussing the actual problem. — Kerry Connelly
Some of the resources and authors mentioned in this episode:
Kerry Connelly, Good White Racist? Confronting Your Role in Racial Injustice
Therese Taylor-Stinson (ed.), Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around — Stories of Contemplation and Justice
The Buddha, Teachings of the Buddha edited by Jack Kornfield
The Desert Mothers and Fathers, Early Christian Wisdom Sayings
Ruby Sales, The Inner Life of Social Change
Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace
For white people to find our meaning, and to find our essence of being apart from this construct of pseudo-supremacy, that's the real work that white people have to do. Because until we can do that, we're never going to be truly willing to dismantle racist systems. — Kerry Connelly
Episode 101: Silence, Privilege, and Dismantling Racism (Part One): A Conversation with Kerry Connelly (Part One)
Hosted by: Cassidy Hall
With: Kevin Johnson, Carl McColman
Guest: Kerry Connelly
Date Recorded: April 13, 2020
Featured photo: George Washington Bridge, photo by James Ting on Unsplash.
Kathleen Norris: Silence, Acedia, and Pandemic (Part Two)
May 21, 2020
This week's episode — our 100th overall, not counting our "pilot episode" — features the conclusion of Kathleen Norris's second conversation with Encountering Silence.
Kathleen Norris is the award-winning poet, writer, and author of The New York Times bestsellers The Cloister Walk, Acedia and Me, Dakota: A Spiritual Geography, Amazing Grace and The Virgin of Bennington. She’s also published seven books of poetry, her first being the 1971 Big Table Younger Poets award-winning Falling Off.
I provide myself with enough chocolate to keep going. — Kathleen Norris
Kathleen’s work explores the spiritual life with an intimate and historical perspective. Cassiday notes, "Her book Acedia & me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer's Life accompanied me in the most beautiful ways a book ever has and truly changed my life—and it remains among my top 3 favorite books alongside Thomas Merton and Mary Oliver. I wept through the book feeling more understood and clear-headed about my own spiritual journey than ever before."
This is part two of a two-part episode. Click here to listen to part one.
I'll never forget, I was talking to an Episcopal nun; when I told her I was writing a book about acedia, she said, 'Well you know, you've taken on the devil himself.' And now that I've finished that book, I know exactly what she meant. She was absolutely right about that. The crazy thing is that her comment didn't stop me, I just kept going with it. — Kathleen Norris
Amid the pandemic Kathleen shared some recent work on the National Catholic Reporter, offering tips for coping with acedia amid this time of slowing down and staying in. She writes, "I recognize acedia when it does turn up. Being forced to stay still is a breeding ground….It's the feeling of being totally bored and totally restless. It's a horrible combination… It isn't just depression. It isn't just boredom. It's a lot of things."
Widowed in 2003, Kathleen is no stranger to living alone. She now divides her time between South Dakota and Honolulu, Hawaii.
In our previous conversation with Kathleen in 2018, she had this to say:
Silence sometimes shows you what you’re really suffering from… just to sit there and let the silence sink in, and often that’s when you discover what it is you’re really worried about, what you’re really suffering from, what your real concerns are, because when you’re busy in the world either with activity or a lot of verbal stuff going on, you’re ignoring some of those deeper things, and sitting in silence for a while, it will start to surface.
Some of the resources and authors mentioned in this episode:
Kathleen Norris, Dakota: A Spiritual Geography
Kathleen Norris, The Cloister Walk
Kathleen Norris, Amazing Grace
Kathleen Norris, Acedia and Me
Kathleen Norris, Acedia and Me Audiobook
Kathleen Norris, The Virgin of Bennington
Kathleen Norris, Falling Off
Kathleen Norris, Journey (includes the poem "The Presbyterian Women Serve Coffee at the Home")
Patrick Shen, In Pursuit of Silence
Episode 100: Silence, Acedia and Pandemic: A Conversation with Kathleen Norris (Part Two)
Hosted by: Cassidy Hall
With: Kevin Johnson, Carl McColman
Guest: Kathleen Norris
Date Recorded: April 27, 2020
Kathleen Norris: Silence, Acedia, and Pandemic (Part One)
May 11, 2020
Our returning guest Kathleen Norris is the award-winning poet, writer, and author of The New York Times bestsellers The Cloister Walk, Acedia and Me, Dakota: A Spiritual Geography, Amazing Grace, and The Virgin of Bennington. She’s also published seven books of poetry, her first being the 1971 Big Table Younger Poets award-winning Falling Off.
Kathleen’s work explores the spiritual life with an intimate and historical perspective. Cassidy notes, "Her book Acedia & me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer's Life accompanied me in the most beautiful ways a book ever has and truly changed my life—and it remains among my top 3 favorite books alongside Thomas Merton and Mary Oliver. I wept through the book feeling more understood and clear-headed about my own spiritual journey than ever before."
This is part one of a two-part interview. Click here to listen to part two.
Amid the pandemic Kathleen shared some recent work on the National Catholic Reporter, offering tips for coping with acedia amid this time of slowing down and staying in. She writes, "I recognize acedia when it does turn up. Being forced to stay still is a breeding ground….It's the feeling of being totally bored and totally restless. It's a horrible combination… It isn't just depression. It isn't just boredom. It's a lot of things."
Acedia is a bad thought, it's a passion that is opportunistic, just like this virus. It will strike just when we're at a low point, our immune system is down, because we're feeling anxious and tired and restless and bored and sad about how things used to be — and all of those things are classic signs of acedia. — Kathleen Norris
Widowed in 2003, Kathleen is no stranger to living alone. She now divides her time between South Dakota and Honolulu, Hawaii.
Silence sometimes shows you what you’re really suffering from… just to sit there and let the silence sink in, and often that’s when you discover what it is you’re really worried about, what you’re really suffering from, what your real concerns are, because when you’re busy in the world either with activity or a lot of verbal stuff going on, you’re ignoring some of those deeper things, and sitting in silence for a while, it will start to surface. — Kathleen Norris
Some of the resources and authors mentioned in this episode:
Kathleen Norris, Dakota: A Spiritual Geography
Kathleen Norris, The Cloister Walk
Kathleen Norris, Amazing Grace
Kathleen Norris, Acedia and Me
Kathleen Norris, Acedia and Me Audiobook
Kathleen Norris, The Virgin of Bennington
Kathleen Norris, Falling Off
Saint Benedict, The Rule of Saint Benedict
William Shakespeare, Collected Works
Isaac Newton, The Principia
The Desert Mothers and Fathers, Early Christian Wisdom Sayings
Dante, The Divine Comedy
Ignatius of Loyola, Personal Writings
Thomas Aquinas, Selected Writings
Evagrius Ponticus, The Praktikos & Chapters on Prayer
Alexis Trader, Ancient Christian Wisdom and Aaron Beck’s Cognitive Therapy: A Meeting of Minds
Gregory the Great, Pastoral Care
Saint Ambrose, On Virginity
Gail Fitzpatrick, OCSO, Seasons of Grace: Wisdom from the Cloister
The opposite of acedia is love. So that if you can work your way through acedia, stagger through all of those bad thoughts that are telling you that nothing matters, and reconnect with other people, realizing who you love and doing what love requires ... that is one way we can fight our way through acedia. — Kathleen Norris
Episode 99: Silence, Acedia and Pandemic: A Conversation with Kathleen Norris (Part One)
Hosted by: Cassidy Hall
With: Kevin Johnson, Carl McColman
Guest: Kathleen Norris
Date Recorded: April 27, 2020
Featured photo by Edwin Hooper on Unsplash.
In Pursuit of Silence, Earth Day, and the Dawn Chorus (Episode 98)
Apr 22, 2020
To honor the 50th Anniversary of the first Earth Day, and in recognition of the continuing challenges related to the COVID-19 pandemic, Encountering Silence's own Cassidy Hall joins with her colleague at Transcendental Media, Patrick Shen, to announce two special, limited-time opportunities:
The movie In Pursuit of Silence — the documentary film that inspired this podcast — is streaming free during this time of crisis, as a gift from the filmmakers to help each of us embrace what this unprecedented season offers. Click here to stream In Pursuit of Silence.
The companion book to the film, Notes on Silence, is also available for a limited time for only $2.99 (Kindle edition). Click here to purchase Notes on Silence for $2.99.
For today's episode of the podcast, Patrick joins us to speak about the movie, how its message is more important than ever in our world today, and offers some insight into new initiatives he is working on, including a collaborative film project celebrating silence at the break of day called the Dawn Chorus.
If we could all learn the work of silence we’d take an awful lot of pressure off of our planet, in terms of ecology, because we wouldn’t be addicted to consumption. And, we wouldn’t be wasting what we waste. … there wouldn’t be this constant seeking seeking seeking for something else to fill up that empty space, when what will fill up the empty space is actually going into the empty space. Again, it’s a paradox. To fill up that empty space, you need to go into the spaciousness of your silence that lives in your heart. — Maggie Ross
Meme recently seen on Facebook, which Carl alludes to in this episode.
…The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of its innate violence. To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone and everything is to succumb to violence. More than that, it is cooperation in violence. The frenzy of the activist neutralizes his work for peace. It destroys his own inner capacity for peace. It destroys the fruitfulness of his own work, because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful…. —Thomas Merton
To hear our previous episodes featuring Patrick Shen, click here and here.
A lot of the white noise of the world has fallen away, many of us are hearing our own voices for the first time, we're certainly much louder than before, and I think the film provides some helpful context. — Patrick Shen
Some of the resources and authors mentioned in this episode:
Patrick Shen (director), In Pursuit of Silence — for a limited time, stream for free at watch.pursuitofsilence.com
Cassidy Hall and Patrick Shen, Notes on Silence
Maggie Ross, Silence: A User's Guide, Volume 1
Charles Taylor, A Secular Age
George Prochnik, In Pursuit of Silence: Listening for Meaning in a World of Noise
Thomas Keating, Open Mind Open Heart
Howard Cosell, I Never Played the Game
Martin Laird, Into the Silent Land: A Guide to the Christian Practice of Contemplation
Macrina Weiderkehr, Seven Sacred Pauses: Living Mindfully Through the Hours of the Day
Johann Baptist Metz, A Passion for God: The Mystical-Political Dimension of Christianity
Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander
Julio Vincent Gambuto, Prepare for the Ultimate Gaslighting
Episode 98: In Pursuit of Silence, Earth Day, and the Dawn Chorus: A Conversation with Patrick Shen
Hosted by: Kevin Johnson
With: Cassidy Hall, Carl McColman
Guest: Patrick Shen
Date Recorded: April 20, 2020
Christine Valters Paintner: Wild Silence and the Cloister of the Earth (Part Two)
Apr 06, 2020
Our conversation with Christine Valters Paintner concludes with this episode.
Christine is the online abbess for Abbey of the Arts, a virtual monastery offering programs and resources on contemplative practice and creative expression. She is the author of thirteen books on monasticism and creativity, including her most recent Earth, Our Original Monastery and her second collection of poems forthcoming this fall, The Wisdom of Wild Grace.
Wild, for me, is breaking beyond the confines of the limits of our imagination... wild, for me, is a doorway into this more expansive image of the Divine... wild, for me, is this understanding of the great Mystery that is. You can't commodify wild or mystery, you can't define it; this gift of wildness also asks us to access our intuitive knowing and our embodied knowing, as well. — Christine Valters Paintner
She leads writing retreats and pilgrimages in Ireland, Scotland, Austria, and Germany and online retreats at her website AbbeyoftheArts.com, living out her commitment as a Benedictine Oblate in Galway, Ireland, with her husband, John.
Christine returns to Encountering Silence (click here to listen to her previous interview with us, from 2018) bringing her warm, wise and inclusive spirituality which encompasses deep contemplation with an inspiring commitment to creative expression.
This is part two of a two part episode. Click here to listen to part one.
Some of the Resources and Authors We Mention In This Episode:
Christine Valters Paintner, Earth, Our Original Monastery: Cultivating Wonder and Gratitude through Intimacy with Nature
Christine Valters Paintner, The Wisdom of Wild Grace: Poems
Christine Valters Paintner, The Artist’s Rule: Nurturing Your Creative Soul with Monastic Wisdom;
Christine Valters Paintner, The Eyes of the Heart: Photography as a Christian Contemplative Practice;
Christine Valters Paintner, The Wisdom of the Body: A Contemplative Journey to Wholeness for Women;
Christine Valters Paintner, The Soul’s Slow Ripening: 12 Celtic Practices for Seeking the Sacred.
Christine Valters Paintner, Dreaming of Stones: Poems
Christine Valters Paintner, Lectio Divina: The Sacred Art
Evelyn Underhill, The Letters of Evelyn Underhill
C. S. Lewis, The Problem of Pain
C. S. Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe
Gerard Manley Hopkins, Poems and Prose
The Desert Mothers and Fathers, Early Christian Wisdom Sayings
The Psalms
Episode 95: Wild Silence and the Cloister of the Earth: A Conversation with Christine Valters Paintner (Part Two)
Hosted by: Carl McColman
With: Cassidy Hall, Kevin Johnson
Date Recorded: March 30, 2020
Featured image photo credit: Burren/Seashore Photo by Gabriel Ramos on Unsplash.
Christine Valters Paintner: Wild Silence and the Cloister of the Earth (Part One)
Apr 03, 2020
Christine Valters Paintner is the online abbess for Abbey of the Arts, a virtual monastery offering programs and resources on contemplative practice and creative expression. She is the author of thirteen books on monasticism and creativity, including her most recent Earth, Our Original Monastery and her second collection of poems forthcoming this fall, The Wisdom of Wild Grace.
This is part one of a two part episode. To listen to part two, click here.
Earth is the place where we learn our most fundamental prayers, hear the call of the wild arising at dawn to awaken us to a new day, participate in the primal liturgy of praise unfolding all around us, and experience the wisdom and guidance of the seasons. — Christine Valters Paintner, Earth: Our Original Monastery
She leads writing retreats and pilgrimages in Ireland, Scotland, Austria, and Germany and online retreats at her website AbbeyoftheArts.com, living out her commitment as a Benedictine Oblate in Galway, Ireland, with her husband, John.
Christine returns to Encountering Silence (click here to listen to her previous interview with us, from 2018) bringing her warm, wise and inclusive spirituality which encompasses deep contemplation with an inspiring commitment to creative expression.
Everything in creation becomes a catalyst for my deepened self-understanding. The forest asks me to embrace my truth once again. The hummingbird invites me to sip holy nectar, the egret to stretch out my wings, the sparrows to remember my flock. Each pine cone contains an epiphany; each smooth stone offers a revelation. I watch and witness as the sun slowly makes her long arc across the sky and discover my own rising and falling. The moon will sing of quiet miracles, like those which reveal and conceal the world every day right before our eyes. — Christine Valters Paintner, Earth: Our Original Monastery
Some of the Resources and Authors We Mention In This Episode:
Christine Valters Paintner, Earth, Our Original Monastery: Cultivating Wonder and Gratitude through Intimacy with Nature
Christine Valters Paintner, The Wisdom of Wild Grace: Poems
Christine Valters Paintner, The Artist’s Rule: Nurturing Your Creative Soul with Monastic Wisdom;
Christine Valters Paintner, The Eyes of the Heart: Photography as a Christian Contemplative Practice;
Christine Valters Paintner, The Wisdom of the Body: A Contemplative Journey to Wholeness for Women;
Christine Valters Paintner, The Soul’s Slow Ripening: 12 Celtic Practices for Seeking the Sacred.
Christine Valters Paintner, Dreaming of Stones: Poems
Christine Valters Paintner, Lectio Divina: The Sacred Art
The Desert Mothers and Fathers, Early Christian Wisdom Sayings
The Psalms
David Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous: Pereption and Language in a More-Than-Human World
Sr. Corita Kent, Learning by Heart: Teachings to Free the Creative Spirit
Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation
David Whyte, River Flow: New and Selected Poems
Helen Waddell, tr., Beasts and Saints
Francis and Clare, The Complete Works
Julian of Norwich, The Showings of Julian of Norwich
Episode 94: Wild Silence and the Cloister of the Earth: A Conversation with Christine Valters Paintner (Part One)
Hosted by: Carl McColman
With: Cassidy Hall, Kevin Johnson
Date Recorded: March 30, 2020
Featured photo credit: Kilmacduagh Monastery photograph by Carl McColman, copyright 2002.
Encountering Silence in Times of Crisis
Mar 25, 2020
This week the Encountering Silence podcast features just the three of us — Cassidy, Kevin and Carl — reflecting on this extraordinary moment we find ourselves in.
Recorded on March 24, 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, naturally we are reflecting on the spirituality of silence and solitude while much of the world has embraced the necessity of sheltering-at-home and social distancing in order to slow the spread of the virus.
But we also recognize that the challenges we are collectively facing during this pandemic could have parallels in almost any crisis situation — any time when life's circumstances present us with situations where we recognize we are not fully in control, we are faced with silence and solitude that may not be of our own choosing, and we are invited to recognize how important it is to embrace our common humanity and relatedness to one another.
Silence is all about releasing control, and all about letting go and being, and melting into this vision of unity... this collective common good, this oneness. — Cassidy Hall
Carl, Cassidy, and Kevin
You've been trained, your whole life, to focus on thinking, words, achievement, doing... so now when you having something like silence and stillness, we don't have places for that in our culture, forced upon you... well, it's a struggle, because you're fighting a habit. — Kevin Johnson
Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander
St. Benedict, The Rule of Saint Benedict
Julian of Norwich, The Showings of Julian of Norwich
Blaise Pascal, Pensées and Other Writings
The Desert Mothers and Fathers, Early Christian Wisdom Sayings
The Beatles, "All Together Now," Yellow Submarine
The Tao te Ching
The Qur'an
Kerry Connelly, Good* White Racist: Confronting Your Role in Racial Injustice
Audre Lord, The Collected Poems
Sarah Griffith Lund, Blessed are the Crazy: Breaking the Silence about Mental Illness, Family and Church
Rick Hanson with Richard Mendius, Buddha's Brain: The Practical Neuroscience of Happiness, Love, and Wisdom
Gerald May, The Awakened Heart: Opening Yourself to the Love You Need
Teilhard de Chardin, The Heart of Matter
Howard Thurman, Meditations of the Heart
Robert Bringhurst and Jan Zwicky, Learning to Die: Wisdom in the Age of Climate Crisis
Therese Schroeder-Sheker, Transitus: A Blessed Death in the Modern World
David Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous: Pereption and Language in a More-Than-Human World
Erazim Kohák, The Embers and the Stars: A Philosophical Inquiry into the Moral Sense of Nature
Wendell Berry, The Selected Poems of Wendell Berry
At the end of the episode, Cassidy quotes from the wonderful poem "Stay Home" by Wendell Berry. Here is a recording in which Berry reads his own poem, followed by a musical setting of it, from the CD Celebrating Wendell Berry in Music.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqTYhxMb_Xo
Silence and solitude and stillness and contemplation do not exist just to facilitate action. There is a place in which silence and solitude and stillness exist simply because they are good and they are necessary. — Carl McColman
Episode 93: Encountering Silence in Times of Crisis
Hosted by: Cassidy Hall
With: Carl McColman, Kevin Johnson
Date Recorded: March 24, 2020
Featured image: Photo by Amelie & Niklas Ohlrogge on Unsplash.
Pádraig Ó Tuama: Silence, Poetry, and Conflict Resolution (Part Two)
Mar 18, 2020
Pádraig Ó Tuama is a poet, theologian, and conflict mediator, who brings interests in language, violence and religion to his work. He is the Poet Laureate and Theologian in Residence for the On Being project, and hosts the Poetry Unbound podcast. He was formerly the leader of the Corrymeela Community (Ireland's oldest peace and reconciliation community), and is the author of four books, including Readings from the Book of Exile, Sorry For Your Troubles, In the Shelter: Finding a Home In the World and Daily Prayer with the Corrymeela Community.
In this episode not only does Pádraig share some thoughts of some of his favorite poets and other authors, but he also offers detailed advice for the beginning writer of poetry.
This is part two of a two-part episode. To listen to part one, click here.
It is mostly poets that I turn to for theology. — Pádraig Ó Tuama
Pádraig Ó Tuama with Carl McColman in Northern Ireland, Summer 2010
Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
Pádraig Ó Tuama, Readings from the Book of Exile
Pádraig Ó Tuama, Sorry For Your Troubles
Pádraig Ó Tuama, In the Shelter: Finding a Home In the World
Pádraig Ó Tuama, Daily Prayer with the Corrymeela Community
Pádraig Ó Tuama, Hymns to Swear By (Album)
Avivah Gottlieb Zornberg, The Murmuring Deep: Reflections on the Biblical Unconscious
Marie Howe, Magdalene: Poems
Jericho Brown, New Testament
Patrick Kavanaugh, Collected Poems
Seamus Heaney, 100 Poems
Lorna Goodison, Selected Poems
Scott MacDougall, More than Communion
Ephrem of Syria, Hymns on Paradise
Ignatius of Loyola, Personal Writings
Augustine of Hippo, Confessions
Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love
Rumi, The Essential Rumi
Hafiz, I Heard God Laughing: Poems of Hope and Joy
Emily Dickinson, The Complete Poems
Sean Hewitt, Lantern
Mary Oliver, Devotions: The Selected Poems
Mimi Khalvati, Afterwardness
James Baldwin (with Richard Avedon), Nothing Personal
Karl Barth, Dogmatics in Outline
Terence McKenna, The Archaic Revival
There's something about the space of loneliness and silence in writing something and wondering, 'Will this stand the test of time?' I know poets who won't show a poem to anyone before it's sat for a year, some editing, etc., but that they need it to distill, like whisky, that it needs to have that kind of a quality to it. — Pádraig Ó Tuama
Episode 92: Silence, Poetry, and Conflict Resolution: A Conversation with Pádraig Ó Tuama (Part Two)
Hosted by: Cassidy Hall
With: Carl McColman, Kevin Johnson
Guest: Pádraig Ó Tuama
Date Recorded: February 17, 2020
Featured image photo by Yves Alarie on Unsplash.
Pádraig Ó Tuama: Silence, Poetry, and Conflict Resolution (Part One)
Mar 05, 2020
Pádraig Ó Tuama is a poet, theologian, and conflict mediator, who brings interests in language, violence and religion to his work. He is the Poet Laureate and Theologian in Residence for the On Being project, and hosts the Poetry Unbound podcast. He was formerly the leader of the Corrymeela Community (Ireland's oldest peace and reconciliation community), and is the author of four books, including Readings from the Book of Exile, Sorry For Your Troubles, In the Shelter: Finding a Home In the World and Daily Prayer with the Corrymeela Community.
This is part one of a two-part episode. Click here to listen to part two.
I think that the deepest spiritual practices are the deepest physical practices, and that the deepest practices of silence are an embodied practice. — Pádraig Ó Tuama
Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
Pádraig Ó Tuama, Readings from the Book of Exile
Pádraig Ó Tuama, Sorry For Your Troubles
Pádraig Ó Tuama, In the Shelter: Finding a Home In the World
Pádraig Ó Tuama, Daily Prayer with the Corrymeela Community
Jason Brian Santos, A Community Called Taizé: A Story of Prayer, Worship and Reconciliation
J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings
Alison Funk, "The Prodigal's Mother Speaks to God"
Pádraig Ó Tuama with Carl McColman in Northern Ireland, Summer 2010
Silence has its own power, and silence can be a way of avoiding. I suppose the hope within any kind of practice of prayer of any tradition, is that any silence that we are holding is also being beheld. There's something or someone or some way of that mystery we call God, that beholds us in the silence that we might be beholding for ourselves. — Pádraig Ó Tuama
Episode 91: Silence, Poetry, and Conflict Resolution: A Conversation with Pádraig Ó Tuama (Part One)
Hosted by: Cassidy Hall
With: Carl McColman, Kevin Johnson
Guest: Pádraig Ó Tuama
Date Recorded: February 17, 2020
Featured image: photo by Adam Markon on Unsplash.
Therese Schroeder-Sheker: Silence, Music, and Death (Part Two)
Feb 25, 2020
Therese Schroeder-Sheker: Silence, Music, and Death (Part One)
Feb 18, 2020
Silence takes many forms: silent prayer, the silence of meditation and contemplation, the silence of the wilderness and the desert, the relationship between silence and creativity or silence and politics.
Silence also shapes and informs one of the great mysteries of life: the mystery of death.
Norman Lockwood was trying to teach me about fasting from sound, that helped cleanse both my inner life and the sensoria. And that set the stage for the possibility of being able to hear something new, as a composer or as a performing artist. — Therese Schroeder-Sheker
Harpist, singer and composer Therese Schroeder-Sheker has devoted her life to exploring this greatest silence of all, through more than forty years of clinical experience serving the physical and spiritual needs of the dying with prescriptive music. Ms. Schroeder-Sheker founded the palliative medical modality of music-thanatology and The Chalice of Repose Project, the first music-thanatology organization in the world.
Her beautiful and award-winning recordings include The Queen’s Minstrel, Rosa Mystica, and The Geography of the Soul. She is the author of Transitus: A Blessed Death in the Modern World. As the title of that book suggests, her work has a contemplative dimension that explores how music can be a gift to those who are dying or in hospice or palliative care.
This is part one of a two-part episode. Part two will be released next week.
Some of the resources and authors we mention in these episodes:
Therese Schroeder-Sheker, The Geography of the Soul (the beautiful music in this podcast comes from this album, and is presented to you by permission of Therese Schroeder-Sheker)
Therese Schroeder-Sheker, Transitus: A Blessed Death in the Modern World
Therese Schroeder-Sheker, The Queen’s Minstrel
Therese Schroeder-Sheker, Rosa Mystica
Therese Schroeder-Sheker, In Dulci Jubilo
Therese Schroeder-Sheker, Celebrant: Historical Harp
Therese Schroeder-Sheker, Chalice of Repose: A Contemplative Musician's Approach to Death and Dying (VHS)
Norman Lockwood, Carol Fantasy for Mixed Chorus and Orchestra (Sheet Music)
Gustav Mahler, Complete Edition
Valentin Tomberg, Lazarus, Come Forth!
E. F. Schumacher, Small Is Beautiful: Economics as if People Mattered
Episode 89: Silence, Music, and Death: A Conversation with Therese Schroeder-Sheker (Part One)
Hosted by: Carl McColman
With: Cassidy Hall, Kevin Johnson
Guest: Therese Schroeder-Sheker
Date Recorded: December 17, 2019
Featured Image: Photo by Rod Long on Unsplash.
Dr. Robert J. Wicks: The Tao of Ordinary Silence (Part Two)
Feb 12, 2020
Dr. Robert Wicks is professor emeritus of Pastoral Counseling at Loyola University Maryland, a prolific author, and an internationally-known speaker on topics such as spirituality, mindfulness, self-care, and stress management. His many books include Everyday Simplicity: A Practical Guide to Spiritual Growth, Perspective: The Calm Within the Storm, Night Call: Embracing Compassion and Hope in a Troubled World, and his latest, The Tao of Ordinariness: Humility and Simplicity in a Narcissistic Age.
I think that anytime we can get together and speak about something that is so important as silence, it really is worth the effort, isn't it? — Robert J. Wicks
Note: this is part two of a two-part interview. To listen to part one, click here.
Dr. Wicks received his doctorate in Psychology from Hahnemann Medical College and Hospital. According to his website, his "major area of expertise is the prevention of secondary stress which encompasses the pressures encountered in reaching out to others. He integrates sound psychology and basic spiritual truths to set the stage for profound personal transformation. He has cultivated this experience through research and clinical practice with psychotherapists, physicians, nurses, educators, relief workers, lawyers, corporate executives and persons in full-time ministry."
People say "Well, I can't seem to sense God." Well, you're too busy in your head thinking. If you look at the energy in a city and experience it; if you're in a quiet place in the forest and you hear the birds that you've never heard, you're hearing the voice of God. The problem is, you're not listening — you're hearing, but you're not listening. — Robert J. Wicks
Dr. Wicks joined the Encountering Silence team on Skype to share his thoughts on the sacred place where spirituality and mental health meet — and the vital place for silence in that nexus.
Some of the resources and authors we mention in these episodes:
Robert J. Wicks, The Tao of Ordinariness: Humility and Simplicity in a Narcissistic Age
Robert J. Wicks, After 50: Spiritually Embracing Your Own Wisdom Years
Robert J. Wicks, Heartstorming: Creating a Place God Can Call Home
Robert J. Wicks and Robert M. Hamma, A Circle of Friends: Encountering the Caring Voices in Your Life
Billy Collins, Aimless Love: New and Selected Poems
Mary Oliver, Devotions: The Selected Poems
Robert Lax, Poems (1962-1997)
Thomas Merton, Collected Poems of Thomas Merton
S. T. Georgiou, The Way of the Dreamcatcher: Spirit Lessons with Robert Lax
Michael N. McGregor, Pure Act: The Uncommon Life of Robert Lax
Cassidy Hall (director), Day of a Stranger
Henri J. M. Nouwen, The Return of the Prodigal Son
Karl Barth, Encounters with Silence
Episode 88: The Tao of Ordinary Silence: A Conversation with Dr. Robert J. Wicks (Part Two)
Hosted by: Kevin Johnson
With: Cassidy Hall, Carl McColman
Date Recorded: December 9, 2019
Dr. Robert J. Wicks: The Tao of Ordinary Silence (Part One)
Feb 06, 2020
Dr. Robert Wicks is professor emeritus of Pastoral Counseling at Loyola University Maryland, a prolific author, and an internationally-known speaker on topics such as spirituality, mindfulness, self-care, and stress management. His many books include Everyday Simplicity: A Practical Guide to Spiritual Growth, Perspective: The Calm Within the Storm, Night Call: Embracing Compassion and Hope in a Troubled World, and his latest, The Tao of Ordinariness: Humility and Simplicity in a Narcissistic Age.
Note: This is part one of a two-part interview. To listen to part two, click here.
Dr. Wicks received his doctorate in Psychology from Hahnemann Medical College and Hospital. According to his website, his "major area of expertise is the prevention of secondary stress which encompasses the pressures encountered in reaching out to others. He integrates sound psychology and basic spiritual truths to set the stage for profound personal transformation. He has cultivated this experience through research and clinical practice with psychotherapists, physicians, nurses, educators, relief workers, lawyers, corporate executives and persons in full-time ministry."
Dr. Wicks joined the Encountering Silence team on Skype to share his thoughts on the sacred place where spirituality and mental health meet — and the vital place for silence in that nexus.
Author Dr Robert Wicks, Ellicott City, MD
Some of the resources and authors we mention in these episodes:
Robert J. Wicks, Riding the Dragon: 10 Lessons for Inner Strength in Challenging Times
Robert J. Wicks, Everyday Simplicity: A Practical Guide to Spiritual Growth
Robert J. Wicks, Perspective: The Calm Within the Storm
Robert J. Wicks, Night Call: Embracing Compassion and Hope in a Troubled World
Robert J. Wicks, The Tao of Ordinariness: Humility and Simplicity in a Narcissistic Age.
Henri Nouwen, The Spiritual Life
Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation
Dalai Lama, A Profound Mind: Cultivating Wisdom in Everyday Life
Kathleen Norris, Dakota: A Spiritual Geography
Anne Lamott, Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith
Episode 87: The Tao of Ordinary Silence: A Conversation with Dr. Robert J. Wicks (Part One)
Hosted by: Kevin Johnson
With: Cassidy Hall, Carl McColman
Date Recorded: December 9, 2019
J. Brent Bill: Beauty, Truth, Life, and Love — and Holy Silence (Part Two)
Jan 28, 2020
For our latest "Encountering Silence field recording," Cassidy Hall visits the farm of Indiana Quaker author J. Brent Bill for a conversation about silence and other essential elements of life. This is part two of a two-part episode; click here to listen to part one.
Cassidy Hall and J. Brent Bill
J. Brent Bill is a Quaker minister, retreat leader, and photographer. He's written more than twenty books, including Holy Silence: The Gift of Quaker Spirituality and Beauty, Truth, Life, and Love: Four Essentials for the Abundant Life. He has served as a local church pastor, denominational executive, seminary faculty member, and go-kart track operator. He lives on Ploughshares Farm, which is forty acres of former farmland being reclaimed to tall grass prairie and native hardwood forest.
Finding rhythms of silence throughout our days, our ordinary day, really returns us to center, returns us to God, and keeps us centered. — J. Brent Bill
Portrait of J. Brent Bill in coffee, by Chris Hagebak
In writing, especially, I need the centeredness of silence, especially in the editing stages, to say 'Is this the right word? What am I conveying here, and am I conveying it in such a way that it can be heard? And the only way I can do that is to look at the words in silence. And I do regard my writing as a form of worship, in an exploration, too, in worship of where God is leading me. — J. Brent Bill
Some of the resources and authors we mention in these episodes:
J. Brent Bill, Holy Silence: The Gift of Quaker Spirituality
J. Brent Bill, Life Lessons from a Bad Quaker: A Humble Stumble Toward Simplicity and Grace
J. Brent Bill and Jennie Isbell, Finding God in the Verbs: Crafting a Fresh Language of Prayer
J. Brent Bill, Mind the Light: Learning to See With Spiritual Eyes
J. Brent Bill and Beth A. Booram, Awaken Your Senses: Exercises for Exploring the Wonder of God
J. Brent Bill, Sacred Compass: The Way of Spiritual Discernment
J. Brent Bill, Beauty, Truth, Life, and Love: Four Essentials for the Abundant Life
T. Canby Jones, George Fox's Attitude Toward War
Thomas Kelly, A Testament of Devotion
John Greenleaf Whittier, The Poetry of John Greenleaf Whittier: A Reader's Edition
Thomas Merton, Day of a Stranger
Patricia Klein et al., Just as We Were: A Nostalgic Look at Growing Up Born Again
Episode 86: Beauty, Truth, Life, Love — and Holy Silence: A Conversation with J. Brent Bill (Part Two)
Hosted by: Cassidy Hall
Date Recorded: December 3, 2019
J. Brent Bill: Beauty, Truth, Life, Love — and Holy Silence (Part One)
Jan 20, 2020
For our latest "Encountering Silence field recording," Cassidy Hall visits the farm of Indiana Quaker author J. Brent Bill for a conversation about silence and other essential elements of life. This is part one of a two-part episode; the remainder of this interview will be released on our next episode.
J. Brent Bill
J. Brent Bill is a Quaker minister, retreat leader, and photographer. He's written more than twenty books, including Holy Silence: The Gift of Quaker Spirituality and Beauty, Truth, Life, and Love: Four Essentials for the Abundant Life. He has served as a local church pastor, denominational executive, seminary faculty member, and go-kart track operator. He lives on Ploughshares Farm, which is forty acres of former farmland being reclaimed to tall grass prairie and native hardwood forest.
Finding rhythms of silence throughout our days, our ordinary day, really returns us to center, returns us to God, and keeps us centered. — J. Brent Bill
Cassidy Hall and J. Brent Bill
In writing, especially, I need the centeredness of silence, especially in the editing stages, to say 'Is this the right word? What am I conveying here, and am I conveying it in such a way that it can be heard? And the only way I can do that is to look at the words in silence. And I do regard my writing as a form of worship, in an exploration, too, in worship of where God is leading me. — J. Brent Bill
Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
J. Brent Bill, Holy Silence: The Gift of Quaker Spirituality
J. Brent Bill, Life Lessons from a Bad Quaker: A Humble Stumble Toward Simplicity and Grace
J. Brent Bill and Jennie Isbell, Finding God in the Verbs: Crafting a Fresh Language of Prayer
J. Brent Bill, Mind the Light: Learning to See With Spiritual Eyes
J. Brent Bill and Beth A. Booram, Awaken Your Senses: Exercises for Exploring the Wonder of God
J. Brent Bill, Sacred Compass: The Way of Spiritual Discernment
J. Brent Bill, Beauty, Truth, Life, and Love: Four Essentials for the Abundant Life
T. Canby Jones, George Fox's Attitude Toward War
Thomas Kelly, A Testament of Devotion
John Greenleaf Whittier, The Poetry of John Greenleaf Whittier: A Reader's Edition
Thomas Merton, Day of a Stranger
Patricia Klein et al., Just as We Were: A Nostalgic Look at Growing Up Born Again
Episode 85: Beauty, Truth, Life, Love — and Holy Silence: A Conversation with J. Brent Bill (Part One)
Hosted by: Cassidy Hall
Date Recorded: December 3, 2019
Dr. Robyn Henderson-Espinoza: Silence and Activist Theology (Part Two)
Dec 17, 2019
Our conversation with Dr. Robyn Henderson-Espinoza, the author of Activist Theology, concludes this week, in part two of a two-part interview. To listen to part one, click here.
Born to a Mexican woman and an Anglo man in Northern Mexico, the Republic of Texas, Dr. Robyn moved to Chicago, IL for graduate school, and completed a master’s degree in theological ethics at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary and Clinical Pastoral Education at a Trauma II Chicagoland hospital. Following graduate school, Dr. Robyn worked in domestic violence & sexual assault fields before joining the Office of the Illinois Attorney General.
In 2009, Dr. Robyn began doctoral work at the University of Denver/Iliff School of Theology studying constructive philosophical theology & ethics, & completed a graduate certificate in Latinx Studies.
As an activist-scholar, Dr. Robyn travels the country doing activist theology and continues to write, using the tools learned in both academy and activism to stand in the hybrid space of faith communities, academy, and movements for justice — curating activist scholarship with deep intention of bridging with difference.
Dr. Robyn‘s life has been lived with the ongoing challenge to remain grounded in the center of their own difference as a non binary Trans mixed-raced Latinx. This has required the thoughtful intention of bridging with their white ancestors and Mexican ancestors and with those in the queer community. As a result, their life’s vocation is one that is committed to the deep relationality of bridging with difference.
Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
Robyn Henderson-Espinoza, Activist Theology
Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation
Tripp Fuller, The Homebrewed Christianity Guide to Jesus
Toni Morrison, The Measure of Our Lives
James Baldwin, Jimmy's Blues and Other Poems
Alfonsina Storni, My Heart Flooded with Water: Selected Poems
Gloria Anzaldúa, Borderlands / La Frontera: The New Mestiza
Some websites to visit include Dr. Robyn’s personal site, iRobyn.com, the Activist Theology Project, and Imaginarium.
So much of our war against everyone has been around disembodiment; and if we encourage embodiment, we might see a different kind of people emerge. — Dr. Robyn Henderson-Espinoza
Episode 84: Silence and Activist Theology: A Conversation with Dr. Robyn Henderson-Espinoza (Part Two)
Hosted by: Cassidy Hall
With: Carl McColman, Kevin Johnson
Date Recorded: December 10, 2019
Dr. Robyn Henderson-Espinoza: Silence and Activist Theology (Part One)
Dec 11, 2019
Dr. Robyn Henderson-Espinoza, the author of Activist Theology, joins our conversation this week. Born to a Mexican woman and an Anglo man in Northern Mexico, the Republic of Texas, Dr. Robyn moved to Chicago, IL for graduate school, and completed a master’s degree in theological ethics at Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary and Clinical Pastoral Education at a Trauma II Chicagoland hospital. Following graduate school, Dr. Robyn worked in domestic violence & sexual assault fields before joining the Office of the Illinois Attorney General.
This is part one of a two-part episode. To listen to part two, click here.
In 2009, Dr. Robyn began doctoral work at the University of Denver/Iliff School of Theology studying constructive philosophical theology & ethics, & completed a graduate certificate in Latinx Studies.
As an activist-scholar, Dr. Robyn travels the country doing activist theology and continues to write, using the tools learned in both academy and activism to stand in the hybrid space of faith communities, academy, and movements for justice — curating activist scholarship with deep intention of bridging with difference.
Dr. Robyn's life has been lived with the ongoing challenge to remain grounded in the center of their own difference as a non binary Trans mixed-raced Latinx. This has required the thoughtful intention of bridging with their white ancestors and Mexican ancestors and with those in the queer community. As a result, their life’s vocation is one that is committed to the deep relationality of bridging with difference.
Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
Robyn Henderson-Espinoza, Activist Theology
Alba Onofrio, Reverend Sex
Erin C. Law, Salt Space
Some websites to visit include Dr. Robyn's personal site, iRobyn.com, the Activist Theology Project, and Imaginarium.
We can't repair relationships without being embodied. — Dr. Robyn Henderson-Espinoza
Episode 83: Silence and Activist Theology: A Conversation with Dr. Robyn Henderson-Espinoza (Part One)
Hosted by: Cassidy Hall
With: Carl McColman, Kevin Johnson
Date Recorded: December 10, 2019
Happy Birthday, Encountering Silence
Dec 04, 2019
Happy Birthday, Encountering Silence!
This week marks the two-year anniversary of our first episode (listen to it here). To mark the occasion, we recorded a few thoughts about how the podcast has surprised us and expanded our own sense of both the beauty and power of silence — and the challenges that silence faces in our noisy and wounded world.
Silence is the meeting place for knowing what we have to say when it's time to speak up and speak out. — Cassidy Hall
Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
Mary Oliver, New and Selected Poems, Volume Two (includes "Everything")
Walter Brueggemann, Interrupting Silence: God’s Command to Speak Out.
Barbara A. Holmes, Joy Unspeakable
Therese Taylor-Stinson, Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around — Stories of Contemplation and Justice
Rebecca Bratten Weiss (with Joanna Penn Copper), Mudwoman
Kathleen Norris, The Cloister Walk
Cynthia Bourgeault, The Heart of Centering Prayer
Lerita Coleman Brown, When the Heart Speaks, Listen
Mary Margaret Funk, Renouncing Violence
James Finley, The Contemplative Heart
John Cage, Silence: Lectures and Writings
Parker J. Palmer, A Hidden Wholeness
James Martin, The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything
Carrie Newcomer, The Beautiful Not Yet: Poems, Essays and Lyrics
Helen E. Lees, Silence in Schools
Silence is so beautiful that we have to speak out against its abuse. — Carl McColman
Episode 82: Happy Birthday, Encountering Silence
Hosted by: Carl McColman
With: Cassidy Hall, Kevin Johnson
Date Recorded: November 25, 2019
Words can't capture the fact that silence can hold everything, and somehow hold it in gladness. — Kevin Johnson
An Orientation to Silence
Nov 27, 2019
If you are interested in the spirituality and psychology of silence, but are new to the idea of intentional silence, where do you begin? How do you orient yourself to the world of silence that is always available to you, right here and right now?
Silence perpetuates its life as being wordless, empty, and nothingness; and at the same time, everything, and whole. Not only does it make it infinite, but it points to its wholeness. — Cassidy Hall
Today's episode of our podcast explores a concept that arose from an interaction between Kevin and a new listener of the podcast, that recently took place on Facebook. Realizing that we did not have a single episode that functions as a kind of orientation to silence (as something more than just the mere absence of sound), we set out to record this episode to fill that gap.
An orientation of silence centers around these questions of, "Is silence a silencing? Is it an opening? Is it an invitation?"... When you orient toward silence, maybe the first orientation is toward ambiguity." — Kevin Johnson
We hope that if you are new to the podcast (and to intentional silence), that this episode will help to you get a sense of where we are coming from, and our philosophy behind why silence matters. But even if you have been listening to us since our first episode almost two years ago, we hope that this will be a helpful conversation — since we are all, always, continually invited to recalibrate and reorient ourselves to the gifts that silence has to offer us.
We find silence, paradoxically, in the absence of silence; that there's something about the absence of silence that can pivot us back deeper into it. — Carl McColman
Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
Thomas Merton, Day of a Stranger
Martin Laird, Into the Silent Land
Maggie Ross, Silence, A User’s Guide Volume 1: Process
Christian Bobin, The Eighth Day: Selected Writings
Carl, Cassidy, and Kevin
Episode 81: An Orientation to Silence
Hosted by: Kevin Johnson
With: Carl McColman, Cassidy Hall
Date Recorded: November 25, 2019
Walter Brueggemann: Silence and the Prophetic Imagination (Part Two)
Nov 11, 2019
This is part two of a two part episode; to listen to part one, click here.
The Rev. Dr. Walter Brueggemann is the William Marcellus McPheeters Professor of Old Testament Emeritus at Columbia Theological Seminary. He is widely regarded as one of the world’s leading Christian interpreters of the Old Testament and is the author of numerous books, including The Prophetic Imagination, Sabbath as Resistance: Saying No to the Culture of Now, From Judgment to Hope: A Study on the Prophets, and his most recent book, Interrupting Silence: God’s Command to Speak Out.
Anybody who is not in touch with the pain of the world probably is not a truth-teller. — Rev. Dr. Walter Brueggemann
Dr. Brueggemann recently joined us via Skype to talk about his understanding of both the challenge and the possibilities associated with silence, especially the importance of interrupting coercive or repressive silence and the status quo in this world of chaos and oppression.
Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
Walter Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination
Walter Brueggemann, Sabbath as Resistance: Saying No to the Culture of Now
Walter Brueggemann, Celebrating Abundance: Devotions for Advent
Walter Brueggemann, A Way Other Than Our Own: Devotions for Lent
Walter Brueggemann, Journey to the Common Good
Walter Brueggemann, From Judgment to Hope: A Study on the Prophets
Walter Brueggemann, Interrupting Silence: God’s Command to Speak Out.
Thomas Merton, Dialogues with Silence
Barbara A. Holmes, Joy Unspeakable: Contemplative Practices of the Black Church
Greta Thunberg, No One is Too Small to Make a Difference
Henri Nouwen, The Wounded Healer
Angela Davis, Women, Race and Class
Eugene Peterson, The Message
Rashi, Commentary on the Torah
Episode 80: Silence and the Prophetic Imagination: A Conversation with Walter Brueggemann (Part Two)
Hosted by: Cassidy Hall
With: Carl McColman, Kevin Johnson
Guest: Walter Brueggemann
Date Recorded: October 14, 2019
Walter Brueggemann: Silence and the Prophetic Imagination (Part One)
Nov 04, 2019
The Rev. Dr. Walter Brueggemann is the William Marcellus McPheeters Professor of Old Testament Emeritus at Columbia Theological Seminary. He is widely regarded as one of the world's leading Christian interpreters of the Old Testament and is the author of numerous books, including The Prophetic Imagination, Sabbath as Resistance: Saying No to the Culture of Now, From Judgment to Hope: A Study on the Prophets, and his most recent book, Interrupting Silence: God's Command to Speak Out.
He recently joined us via Skype to talk about his understanding of both the challenge and the possibilities associated with silence, especially the importance of interrupting coercive or repressive silence and the status quo in this world of chaos and oppression.
In his latest book, he writes:
"Silence is a complex matter. It can refer to awe before unutterable holiness, but it can also refer to coercion where some voices are silence in the interest of control by the dominant voices.” ― Walter Brueggemann, Interrupting Silence: God's Command to Speak Out.
Some other quotations to ponder:
“Multitasking is the drive to be more than we are, to control more than we do, to extend our power and our effectiveness. Such practice yields a divided self, with full attention given to nothing.” ―Walter Brueggemann, Sabbath as Resistance: Saying No to the Culture of Now
“No establishment figure wants to tolerate affrontive poetry that exposes the failure of the totalizing system and claims it contradicts God’s will.” ― Walter Brueggemann, Interrupting Silence: God's Command to Speak Out.
“We have seen in our own day in so many liberation struggles that the first cry for mercy does not succeed. The silencers are powerful and determined. Among us the silencers are the powerful, who have a stake in the status quo and do not mind some poverty-stricken disability, and those who collude with the powerful, often unwittingly. The work of silencing, like that of this crowd, is variously by slogan, by intimidation, by deception, or by restrictive legislation. Emancipation does not succeed most often in a one-shot effort. More is required.” ― Walter Brueggemann, Interrupting Silence: God's Command to Speak Out.
This is part one of a two part episode; to listen to part two, click here.
Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
Walter Brueggemann, The Prophetic Imagination
Walter Brueggemann, Sabbath as Resistance: Saying No to the Culture of Now
Walter Brueggemann, Celebrating Abundance: Devotions for Advent
Walter Brueggemann, A Way Other Than Our Own: Devotions for Lent
Walter Brueggemann, Journey to the Common Good
Walter Brueggemann, From Judgment to Hope: A Study on the Prophets
Walter Brueggemann, Interrupting Silence: God's Command to Speak Out.
Thomas Merton, Dialogues with Silence
Barbara A. Holmes, Joy Unspeakable: Contemplative Practices of the Black Church
Episode 79: Silence and the Prophetic Imagination: A Conversation with Walter Brueggemann (Part One)
Hosted by: Cassidy Hall
With: Carl McColman, Kevin Johnson
Guest: Walter Brueggemann
Date Recorded: October 14, 2019
Adam Bucko: Silence, Sacred Activism, and the Spiritual Imagination (Part Two)
Oct 29, 2019
Our conversation with the Rev. Adam Bucko continues in this episode, the second part of a two-part interview. To listen to part one, click here.
In the summer of 2019, the Reverend Adam Bucko was appointed as a Minor Canon at the Episcopal Cathedral of the Incarnation in Garden City, NY, where he serves as the director of the Center for the Spiritual Imagination. Although he is a newly ordained Episcopal priest, Adam has been a prominent figure in new monastic and contemplative Christian circles for some time now.
Before going to seminary, he was an activist and spiritual director to New York City’s homeless youth. He is the co-author of two books, Occupy Spirituality: A Radical Vision for a New Generation (with Matthew Fox), and The New Monasticism: A Manifesto for Contemplative Living (with Rory McEntee).
What we discovered was that homeless kids were not interested in talking about spirituality, but they were very eager to experience what would feel like a break from all the chaos that was present in their lives. — Adam Bucko
Adam grew up in Poland during the totalitarian regime, where he explored the anarchist youth movement as a force for social and political change. After emigrating to the US at 17, his desire to lead a meaningful life sent him to monasteries in the US and India. His life-defining experience took place in India, where a brief encounter with a homeless child led him to the “Ashram of the Poor” where he began his work with homeless youth.
This trans kid who started coming every day to learn meditation, he simply said, "Every time I show up here, I feel like I need to go into the meditation room. Once I go there, once I sit and get quiet, I feel like I just need to tell God about all of the pain in my life, and then just rest there, and be silent." And so my response to that was, "Why don't you just do that — every day." — Adam Bucko
Upon returning to the US, Adam worked with homeless youth in cities around the country. He co-founded The Reciprocity Foundation, an award winning nonprofit dedicated to transforming the lives of New York City’s homeless youth. Additionally, Adam established HAB, an ecumenical and inter-spiritual contemplative fellowship for young people which offers formation in radical spirituality and sacred activism.
Contemplative prayer for me is very much about heartbreak and aliveness. I gather all of the stuff of my life, all of the stuff that I experience in this world, both my heartbreak but also all of those things that make me truly alive, and I bring them to God and I sit there, in silence, awaiting God's response. — Adam Bucko
Adam speaks movingly about growing up in the repressive society of totalitarian Poland (where priests he knew were killed by the government), and then discovering contemplative practice through Hindu spirituality, before discerning a call to integrate his spiritual life with a commitment to social justice and sacred activism.
To learn more about Adam, visit www.adambucko.com.
Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
Adam Bucko & Matthew Fox, Occupy Spirituality: A Radical Vision for a New Generation
Adam Bucko & Rory McEntee, The New Monasticism: A Manifesto for Contemplative Living
Ramon Panikkar, The Intra-Religious Dialogue
Bede Griffiths, Essential Writings
Wayne Teasdale, The Mystic Heart: Discovering a Universal Spirituality in the World's Religions
Shane Claiborne, The Irresistible Revolution
Thomas Keating, Open Mind Open Heart
Thomas Merton, Mystics and Zen Masters
Beverly Lanzetta, The Monk Within: Embracing a Sacred Way of Life
John Main, Essential Writings
Teresa of Ávila, The Book of My Life
Bernie Glassman, Infinite Circle: Teachings on Zen
Edith Stein (Sr. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross), Essential Writings
Meister Eckhart, Complete Mystical Works
Augustine of Hippo, Confessions
Dorothee Soelle,
Adam Bucko: Silence, Sacred Activism, and the Spiritual Imagination (Part One)
Oct 22, 2019
In the summer of 2019, the Reverend Adam Bucko was appointed as a Minor Canon at the Episcopal Cathedral of the Incarnation in Garden City, NY, where he serves as the director of the Center for the Spiritual Imagination. Although he is a newly ordained Episcopal priest, Adam has been a prominent figure in new monastic and contemplative Christian circles for some time now.
Before going to seminary, he was an activist and spiritual director to New York City's homeless youth. He is the co-author of two books, Occupy Spirituality: A Radical Vision for a New Generation (with Matthew Fox), and The New Monasticism: A Manifesto for Contemplative Living (with Rory McEntee).
What was my contemplative practice? My contemplative practice was to become aware of everything that was alive in me, both the joys, the heartbreaks, you name it... simply gather that, bring it to God, and sit there in a state of receptivity and listening, inviting God to hold me. And just sitting there in a state of curious not-knowing, consenting to whatever work God wanted to do in my life. — Adam Bucko
Adam grew up in Poland during the totalitarian regime, where he explored the anarchist youth movement as a force for social and political change. After emigrating to the US at 17, his desire to lead a meaningful life sent him to monasteries in the US and India. His life-defining experience took place in India, where a brief encounter with a homeless child led him to the "Ashram of the Poor" where he began his work with homeless youth.
I remember as a kid, just being enveloped by this Loving Presence, and it felt like, even though everything around me was falling apart, nonetheless there was this something, almost like a motherly presence, that is holding me, and therefore it's okay for me to be here, to be alive, and to continue with my life... — Adam Bucko
Upon returning to the US, Adam worked with homeless youth in cities around the country. He co-founded The Reciprocity Foundation, an award winning nonprofit dedicated to transforming the lives of New York City's homeless youth. Additionally, Adam established HAB, an ecumenical and inter-spiritual contemplative fellowship for young people which offers formation in radical spirituality and sacred activism.
I went to India to get out of this world, but I was brought back into it — especially into the world of pain; and that was a huge gift, it changed my life and it allowed me to work with my own pain, my own trauma. — Adam Bucko
Adam speaks movingly about growing up in the repressive society of totalitarian Poland (where priests he knew were killed by the government), and then discovering contemplative practice through Hindu spirituality, before discerning a call to integrate his spiritual life with a commitment to social justice and sacred activism.
To learn more about Adam, visit www.adambucko.com.
Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
Adam Bucko & Matthew Fox, Occupy Spirituality: A Radical Vision for a New Generation
Adam Bucko & Rory McEntee, The New Monasticism: A Manifesto for Contemplative Living
Tessa Bielecki, Holy Daring: The Earthy Mysticism of St. Teresa, the Wild Woman of Avila (forward by Adam Bucko)
Bede Griffiths, Essential Writings
John Main, Essential Writings
Sr. Vandana Mataji, Nama Japa: The Prayer of the Name
Ramon Panikkar, The Intra-Religious Dialogue
Abhishiktananda, Essential Writings
Henri Nouwen, The Way of the Heart
Bernie Glassman, Infinite Circle: Teachings on Zen
Episode 77: Silence, Sacred Activism, and the Spiritual Imagination: A Conversation with Adam Bucko (Part One)
Hosted by: Cassidy Hall
With: Carl McColman, Kevin Johnson
Guest: Adam Bucko
Date Recorded: September 23, 2019
Featured image: Cathedral of the Incarnation, Garden City, NY.
Silence and the Wisdom of Henri Nouwen: A Conversation With Gabrielle Earnshaw (Part 2)
Oct 15, 2019
Our conversation continues with historian Gabrielle Earnshaw — the founding archivist of the Henri Nouwen Archives in Toronto, Canada. She has been the adviser to the Henri Nouwen Legacy Trust for eighteen years and is consulted throughout the world on Nouwen and his literary legacy.
This is part two of a two-part interview. Part one was released last week.
She is the editor of several of Nouwen’s posthumously published books, including Love, Henri (a collection of Nouwen’s letters), You Are the Beloved (a collection of daily meditations), and the newly published Following Jesus: Finding Our Way Home in an Age of Anxiety, based on lectures Nouwen gave at Harvard University in the 1980s.
Gabrielle Earnshaw
In our conversation, Earnshaw shares not only her insights into the spiritual and literary legacy of Henri Nouwen, but also her own journey into the spirituality of silence — and how curating Nouwen’s archives helped her along the way.
Henri Nouwen spoke about silence in every book; it’s not like he had one book on silence — it’s in every book… it was really important to him… one of the most important themes in his writing. — Gabrielle Earnshaw
Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
Henri Nouwen, Love, Henri: Letters on the Spiritual Life
Henri Nouwen, You Are the Beloved: Daily Meditations for Spiritaul Living
Henri Nouwen, Following Jesus: Finding Our Way Home in an Age of Anxiety
Henri Nouwen, The Way of the Heart: Connecting with God Through Prayer, Wisdom and Silence
Henri Nouwen, Encounters with Merton: Spiritual Reflections
Henri Nouwen, The Genesee Diary: Report from a Trappist Monastery
Henri Nouwen, Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming
Henri Nouwen, The Wounded Healer: Ministry in Contemporary Society
Henri Nouwen, The Road to Daybreak: A Spiritual Journey
John Main, Word Into Silence: A Manual for Christian Meditation
Laurence Freeman, Web of Silence: Letters to Meditators
Jean Vanier, Tears of Silence: A Meditation
Sue Mosteller, Light Through the Crack: Life After Loss
Sue Mosteller, A Place to Hold my Shaky Heart: Reflections from Life in Community
Sue Mosteller, My Brother, my Sister
Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander
Desert Wisdom: Sayings from the Desert Fathers (introduction by Henri Nouwen)
Ronald Rolheiser, The Holy Longing: The Search for a Christian Spirituality
Thomas Keating, Intimacy with God: An Introduction to Centering Prayer
This is part two of a two-part interview. Part one was released last week.
Episode 76: Silence and the Wisdom of Henri Nouwen: A Conversation with Gabrielle Earnshaw (Part Two)
Hosted by: Kevin Johnson
With: Carl McColman, Cassidy Hall
Date Recorded: September 6, 2019
Featured Image: Henri Nouwen at his New Haven apartment circa 1981. Photo courtesy of Jim Forest via Flickr Commons.
Silence and the Wisdom of Henri Nouwen: A Conversation with Gabrielle Earnshaw (Part 1)
Oct 07, 2019
Historian Gabrielle Earnshaw is the founding archivist of the Henri Nouwen Archives in Toronto, Canada. She has been the adviser to the Henri Nouwen Legacy Trust for eighteen years and is consulted throughout the world on Nouwen and his literary legacy.
She is the editor of several of Nouwen's posthumously published books, including Love, Henri (a collection of Nouwen's letters), You Are the Beloved (a collection of daily meditations), and the newly published Following Jesus: Finding Our Way Home in an Age of Anxiety, based on lectures Nouwen gave at Harvard University in the 1980s.
Gabrielle Earnshaw
In our conversation, Earnshaw shares not only her insights into the spiritual and literary legacy of Henri Nouwen, but also her own journey into the spirituality of silence — and how curating Nouwen's archives helped her along the way.
Henri Nouwen with his dear friend, Sr. Sue Mosteller
Henri Nouwen spoke about silence in every book; it's not like he had one book on silence — it's in every book... it was really important to him... one of the most important themes in his writing. — Gabrielle Earnshaw
Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
Henri Nouwen, Love, Henri: Letters on the Spiritual Life
Henri Nouwen, You Are the Beloved: Daily Meditations for Spiritaul Living
Henri Nouwen, Following Jesus: Finding Our Way Home in an Age of Anxiety
Henri Nouwen, The Way of the Heart: Connecting with God Through Prayer, Wisdom and Silence
Henri Nouwen, Encounters with Merton: Spiritual Reflections
Henri Nouwen, The Genesee Diary: Report from a Trappist Monastery
Henri Nouwen, Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming
Henri Nouwen, The Wounded Healer: Ministry in Contemporary Society
Henri Nouwen, The Road to Daybreak: A Spiritual Journey
John Main, Word Into Silence: A Manual for Christian Meditation
Laurence Freeman, Web of Silence: Letters to Meditators
Jean Vanier, Tears of Silence: A Meditation
Sue Mosteller, Light Through the Crack: Life After Loss
Sue Mosteller, A Place to Hold my Shaky Heart: Reflections from Life in Community
Sue Mosteller, My Brother, my Sister
Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander
Desert Wisdom: Sayings from the Desert Fathers (introduction by Henri Nouwen)
Ronald Rolheiser, The Holy Longing: The Search for a Christian Spirituality
Thomas Keating, Intimacy with God: An Introduction to Centering Prayer
This is part one of a two-part interview. Part two will be released next week.
Episode 75: Silence and the Wisdom of Henri Nouwen: A Conversation with Gabrielle Earnshaw (Part One)
Hosted by: Kevin Johnson
With: Carl McColman, Cassidy Hall
Date Recorded: September 6, 2019
Bushi Yamato Damashii: Silence and the Peaceful Samurai (Part Two)
Sep 30, 2019
Bushi Yamato Damashii returns for the second part of this two part interview. Click here to listen to part one.
Bushi Yamato Damashi is the founder of Sangha Bodhi Christo (a Buddhist-Christian student and practice community), and directs the Thomasville Buddhist Center in Thomasville, NC. He is a student of Buddhist teachers Lama Rod Owens and Lama Justin Von Bujdoos. Like many American Buddhists, his practice is eclectic, drawing from the Daishin Zen and the Vajrayana lineages.
Bushi, who also is known as Heiwa no Bushi, or “peaceful samurai,” speaks and teaches on topics such as “The Making of a Christ Sangha” and “Celebrating and Integrating Inter-Spiritual Energetic Healing Modalities.” Joining us on the podcast, he shares his insightful wisdom not only on Buddhism and Buddhist-Christian dialog, but also on the psychology of spiritual growth.
Jesus and the Buddha did the same work. Were they different in their lineages or where they came from? Yes. But I believe that Jesus and the Buddha both understood... we must become a very intimate people with one another, and then our books will begin to make sense — and not the other way around. — Bushi Yamato Damashii
Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
Lama Rod Owens, Love and Rage: The Path of Liberation Through Anger
Justin Von Bujdoos, Modern Tantric Buddhism: Embodiment and Authenticity in Dharma Practice
Howard Thurman, Essential Writings
Francis X. Clooney, Comparative Theology: Deep Learning Across Religious Borders
The Matrix Film Trilogy
Carl Jung, The Portable Jung
Albert Einstein, Ideas and Opinions
Martin Luther King Jr., Strength to Love
Mahatma Gandhi, The Story of My Experiments With Truth
Sun Tzu, The Art of War
Never hold yourself or anyone else too seriously. — Bushi Yamato Damashii
This is part two of a two-part interview. Click here to listen to part one.
Silence became pretty much the foundation for the rest of my living with the life that I have; the foundation for the rest of my living. — Bushi Yamato Damashii
Episode 74: Silence and the Peaceful Samurai: A Conversation with Bushi Yamato Damashii (Part Two)
Hosted by: Carl McColman
With: Cassidy Hall, Kevin Johnson
Date Recorded: September 6, 2019
Bushi Yamato Damashii: Silence and the Peaceful Samurai (Part One)
Sep 16, 2019
Bushi Yamato Damashii is the founder of Sangha Bodhi Christo (a Buddhist-Christian student and practice community), and directs the Thomasville Buddhist Center in Thomasville, NC. He is a student of Buddhist teachers Lama Rod Owens and Lama Justin Von Bujdoos. Like many American Buddhists, his practice is eclectic, drawing from the Daishin Zen and the Vajrayana lineages.
Bushi, who also is known as Heiwa no Bushi, or “peaceful samurai,” speaks and teaches on topics such as “The Making of a Christ Sangha” and “Celebrating and Integrating Inter-Spiritual Energetic Healing Modalities.” Joining us on the podcast, he shares his insightful wisdom not only on Buddhism and Buddhist-Christian dialog, but also on the psychology of spiritual growth.
Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
Lama Rod Owens, Love and Rage: The Path of Liberation Through Anger
Justin Von Bujdoos, Modern Tantric Buddhism: Embodiment and Authenticity in Dharma Practice
Howard Thurman, Essential Writings
Francis X. Clooney, Comparative Theology: Deep Learning Across Religious Borders
The Matrix Film Trilogy
Carl Jung, The Portable Jung
Albert Einstein, Ideas and Opinions
Martin Luther King Jr., Strength to Love
Mahatma Gandhi, The Story of My Experiments With Truth
Sun Tzu, The Art of War
This is part one of a two-part interview. Click here to listen to part two.
Silence became pretty much the foundation for the rest of my living with the life that I have; the foundation for the rest of my living. — Bushi Yamato Damashii
Episode 73: Silence and the Peaceful Samurai: A Conversation with Bushi Yamato Damashii (Part One)
Hosted by: Carl McColman
With: Cassidy Hall, Kevin Johnson
Date Recorded: September 6, 2019
Unteachable Lessons: Encountering Silence in Wisdom That Can’t Be Taught
Sep 09, 2019
This week we're keeping our conversation close to home, as we explore Unteachable Lessons: Why Wisdom Can't Be Taught and Why That's Okay — the new book from Encountering Silence co-host Carl McColman.
How do you touch the face of God? You touch the face of God through the medium of silence. And the silence is always there, it's not something I have to create, it's not something we have to conjure, if anything it's something we simply have to allow. Again, by learning, little by little by little, by learning to attend to the spaces between the words. — Carl McColman
Unteachable Lessons looks at some of the most important "lessons" of life — learning how to love, how to trust, how to pray, how to grieve — can never be learned from a book or a class or a workshop. It looks at how wisdom often operates on a level deeper than words. Of course, that means one of the best ways to access wisdom is through silence.
In today's episode of the podcast, Cassidy and Kevin talk to Carl about how the book came to be written and what inspired Carl to explore this particular topic.
Sometimes words get in the way... and sometimes going to a workshop gets in the way, or reading a lot of books gets in the way... we have to learn not through "learning," but through living. — Carl McColman
Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
Carl McColman, Unteachable Lessons
Carl McColman, Befriending Silence
Carl McColman, The Big Book of Christian Mysticism
Carl McColman, Christian Mystics
Carl McColman, Answering the Contemplative Call
Lil Copan, Promises of Heaven
Martin Laird, An Ocean of Light
Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love
Sam Keen, Fire in the Belly
Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life
John of the Cross, Dark Night of the Soul
Woody Allen, Without Feathers
William Faulkner, Three Novels
Tilden Edwards, Living in the Presence: Spiritual Exercises to Open Our Lives to the Awareness of God
Gerald May, Will and Spirit: A Contemplative Psychology
Thomas Keating, Open Mind, Open Heart: The Contemplative Dimension of the Gospel
Rene Girard, Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World
Elias Marechal, Tears of An Innocent God: Conversations on Silence, Kindness and Prayer
Mary Margaret Funk, Thoughts Matter
Marvin C. Shaw, The Paradox of Intention
Writing is a great antidote to pride. — Carl McColman
Episode 72: Unteachable Lessons: Encountering Silence in Wisdom That Can't Be Taught
Hosted by: Cassidy Hall
With: Carl McColman, Kevin Johnson
Date Recorded: September 3, 2019
Bonus content! Here's one of Carl's favorite kitty-cat videos...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jr3H_-evGb0
Philip Roderick: Encountering Silence in Quiet Gardens (Part Two)
Aug 26, 2019
Here is the second part of our conversation with Philip Roderick, the founder and a patron of the Quiet Garden Movement, of Contemplative Fire and of Hidden Houses of Prayer. He delights in the radical presence of God in community, in nature – on hillside and by seashore; he rejoices in chant and harmony, syncopation and stillness. He is an author and a musician.
He has worked in Bangor University as Chaplain and Lecturer in Theology then in the Oxford Diocese as Principal of the Buckinghamshire Christian Training Scheme and as a parish priest in Amersham on the Hill. In 2015 he retired from being Bishop’s Adviser in Spirituality and Chaplain to Whirlow Grange in the Diocese of Sheffield.
Philip’s writings include the book Beloved: Henri Nouwen in Conversation, and articles that appear in the following books, all part of the “Ancient Faith, Future Mission” series published by Canterbury Press: New Monasticism as Fresh Expressions of Church, Fresh Expressions in the Sacramental Tradition, and Doorways to the Sacred: Developing Sacramentality in Fresh Expressions of Church.
I believe there is a continuum in all of us — well, I feel it in my own being — between the hermit and the engaged one. — Philip Roderick
Other resources featuring Philip include Sacred Posture, a teaching DVD on body prayer, and Sheer Sound, a music album featuring a musical instrument called “the Hang.”
Philip joined us via Skype from his home in England near the South Downs to discuss his various efforts, all of which unite creativity and/or community building to help foster contemplation and silence in people’s lives.
Contemplative intercession can be profoundly engaged spirituality, because it is a holding of the wounds of the world; it's doing deep work, doing deep work on behalf of the universe. — Philip Roderick
Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
Philip Roderick, Beloved: Henri Nouwen in Conversation
Philip Roderick, Sacred Posture (DVD)
Philip Roderick, Sheer Sound (available as CD or MP3)
Teilhard de Chardin, Essential Writings
Simone Weil, Waiting for God
William Blake, Complete Poetry and Prose
Martin Israel, Doubt: The Way of Growth
Thomas Keating, Reflections on the Unknowable
R. S. Thomas, "The Other" from The Echoes Return Slow
Silence and solitude are precursors to service. They can seem to be escapist, but in fact a true silence and a true solitude lead to a full expression of care and love; so the call to love and heal is integrally bound up with the call to be hidden and alone. — Philip Roderick
Episode 71: Encountering Silence in Quiet Gardens: A Conversation with Philip Roderick (Part Two)
Hosted by: Carl McColman
With: Cassidy Hall, Kevin Johnson
Guest: Philip Roderick
Date Recorded: May 6, 2019
Philip Roderick: Encountering Silence in Quiet Gardens (Part One)
Aug 09, 2019
Philip Roderick, a priest of the Church of England, is the founder and a patron of the Quiet Garden Movement, of Contemplative Fire and of Hidden Houses of Prayer. He delights in the radical presence of God in community, in nature – on hillside and by seashore; he rejoices in chant and harmony, syncopation and stillness. He is an author and a musician.
He has worked in Bangor University as Chaplain and Lecturer in Theology then in the Oxford Diocese as Principal of the Buckinghamshire Christian Training Scheme and as a parish priest in Amersham on the Hill. In 2015 he retired from being Bishop’s Adviser in Spirituality and Chaplain to Whirlow Grange in the Diocese of Sheffield.
Philip's writings include the book Beloved: Henri Nouwen in Conversation, and articles that appear in the following books, all part of the “Ancient Faith, Future Mission” series published by Canterbury Press: New Monasticism as Fresh Expressions of Church, Fresh Expressions in the Sacramental Tradition, and Doorways to the Sacred: Developing Sacramentality in Fresh Expressions of Church.
SIlence is a weaving, it's like a tapestry or a pattern of presence; it recalls me; but it's not like a block, it's more like a river, a flow, a patterning... silence is for me a resource, an aperture, a journey... — Philip Roderick
Other resources featuring Philip include Sacred Posture, a teaching DVD on body prayer, and Sheer Sound, a music album featuring a musical instrument called "the Hang."
Philip joined us via Skype from his home in England near the South Downs to discuss his various efforts, all of which unite creativity and/or community building to help foster contemplation and silence in people's lives.
Sometimes the stillness is so evocative that the stillness becomes the call. — Philip Roderick
Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
Philip Roderick, Beloved: Henri Nouwen in Conversation
Philip Roderick, Sacred Posture (DVD)
Philip Roderick, Sheer Sound (available as CD or MP3)
Mother Thecla, Great Feasts of the Church
Bede Griffiths, Essential Writings
Thomas Gray (et al.), Selected Poems
Silence and solitude are precursors to service. They can seem to be escapist, but in fact a true silence and a true solitude lead to a full expression of care and love; so the call to love and heal is integrally bound up with the call to be hidden and alone. — Philip Roderick
Episode 70: Encountering Silence in Quiet Gardens: A Conversation with Philip Roderick (Part One)
Hosted by: Carl McColman
With: Cassidy Hall, Kevin Johnson
Guest: Philip Roderick
Date Recorded: May 6, 2019
Ruben L. F. Habito: Christianity, Buddhism and Silence (Part Two)
Jul 22, 2019
Our conversation continues with Zen roshi and a Catholic spiritual director Ruben L. F. Habito.
Ruben L. F. Habito is both a former Jesuit and a master of the Sanbo Kyodan lineage of Zen. In his early youth the Society of Jesus sent him from his homeland in the Philippines to Japan, where he began his Zen practice under the guidance of Yamada Koun-roshi. Koun-roshi was a Zen master who taught many Christians students, an unusual practice for the time. In 1988, Habito received Dharma transmission from Yamada Koun. He left the Jesuit order shortly after that, and in 1991 founded the lay organization Maria Kannon Zen Center in Dallas, Texas. He has taught at Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University since 1989 where he continues to be a faculty member. He is married and has two sons.
Dr. Habito is the author of several books, all of which explore various aspects of Buddhist-Christian dialogue, including Be Still and Know: Zen and the Bible, Zen and the Spiritual Exercises, and Living Zen, Loving God.
In this concluding part of his conversation with the Encountering Silence team, Rubito speaks about what inspires him as a writer, the difference between centering prayer and zazen, the centrality of the breath in contemplation, and other topics related to his singular path as a Zen Christian.
Spend one hour a week doing nothing; doing nothing in a very intentional and purposeful way. In short, not attempting to do anything, but just allowing... to be. — Ruben L. F. Habito
Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
Ruben L. F. Habito, Be Still and Know: Zen and the Bible
Ruben L. F. Habito, Zen and the Spiritual Exercises
Ruben L. F. Habito, Healing Breath, Zen for Christians and Buddhists in a Wounded World
Ruben L. F. Habito, Living Zen, Loving God
Ruben L. F. Habito, Experiencing Buddhism: Ways of Wisdom and Compassion
Maggie Ross, Silence: A User's Guide, Volume 2
Nicholas of Cusa, Selected Spiritual Writings
World Spirituality: Jewish Spirituality, Volume One
World Spirituality: Jewish Spirituality, Volume Two
World Spirituality: Hindu Spirituality, Volume One
World Spirituality: Hindu Spirituality, Volume Two
World Spirituality: Islamic Spirituality, Volume One
World Spirituality: Islamic Spirituality, Volume Two
World Spirituality: Christian Spirituality, Volume One
World Spirituality: Christian Spirituality, Volume Two
World Spirituality: Christian Spirituality, Volume Three
World Spirituality, Spirituality and the Secular Quest
Simone Weil, Waiting For God
Simone Weil, Gravity and Grace
Frances S. Adeney, Christianity Encountering World Religions
Mary Oliver, Devotions: The Selected Poems
Ignatius of Loyola, The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius
Dainin Katagiri, Each Moment is the Universe
Episode 69: Christianity, Buddhism and Silence: A Conversation with Ruben L. F. Habito (Part Two)
Hosted by: Carl McColman
With: Cassidy Hall, Kevin Johnson
Guest: Ruben L. F. Habito
Date Recorded: May 3, 2019
Ruben L. F. Habito: Christianity, Buddhism, and Silence (Part One)
Jul 08, 2019
How does silence form and shape the life of person who is both Zen roshi and a Catholic spiritual director?
Ruben L. F. Habito is both a former Jesuit and a master of the Sanbo Kyodan lineage of Zen. In his early youth the Society of Jesus sent him from his homeland in the Philippines to Japan, where he began his Zen practice under the guidance of Yamada Koun-roshi. Koun-roshi was a Zen master who taught many Christians students, an unusual practice for the time. In 1988, Habito received Dharma transmission from Yamada Koun. He left the Jesuit order shortly after that, and in 1991 founded the lay organization Maria Kannon Zen Center in Dallas, Texas. He has taught at Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University since 1989 where he continues to be a faculty member. He is married and has two sons.
Silence for me is not so much a set of external conditions, but more of an inner state of mind. — Ruben L. F. Habito
Dr. Habito is the author of several books, all of which explore various aspects of Buddhist-Christian dialogue, including Be Still and Know: Zen and the Bible, Zen and the Spiritual Exercises, and Living Zen, Loving God.
In his conversation with the Encountering Silence team, he speaks about the relationship with silence and the fullness of a joyful life, as well as how his engagement with both Christianity and Buddhism has shaped his own relationship with silence.
I felt some kind of unspeakable joy of just being in the middle ... if you are at a place within you that enables you to be at home where you are, that's where you can find that interior silence that can connect, and enable you to really open your heart in a warm embrace. That's what silence is for me. — Ruben L. F. Habito
Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
Ruben L. F. Habito, Be Still and Know: Zen and the Bible
Ruben L. F. Habito, Zen and the Spiritual Exercises
Ruben L. F. Habito, Healing Breath, Zen for Christians and Buddhists in a Wounded World
Ruben L. F. Habito, Living Zen, Loving God
Ruben L. F. Habito, Experiencing Buddhism: Ways of Wisdom and Compassion
Ignatius of Loyola, The Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius
Barbara Brown Taylor, Holy Envy: Finding God in the Faith of Others
Krister Stendahl, Energy for Life
Nicholas of Cusa, Selected Spiritual Writings
Paul Knitter, Without Buddha I Could Not Be A Christian
William Johnston, Christian Zen: A Way of Meditation
Tilden Edwards, Living in the Presence: Spiritual Exercises to Open Our Lives to the Awareness of God
Thomas Merton, Mystics and Zen Masters
Susan Stabile, Growing in Love and Wisdom: Tibetan Buddhist Sources for Christian Meditation
Mary Margaret Funk, Discernment Matters
Charles Curran, Loyal Dissent: Memoir of a Catholic Theologian
Francis Sullivan, Creative Fidelity: Weighing and Interpreting Documents of the Magisterium
Episode 68: Christianity, Buddhism and Silence: A Conversation with Ruben L. F. Habito (Part One)
Hosted by: Carl McColman
With: Cassidy Hall, Kevin Johnson
Guest: Ruben L. F. Habito
Date Recorded: May 3, 2019
Kathleen Deignan: Silence and Nature (Part Two)
Jun 24, 2019
This episode concludes our conversation with Sister Kathleen P. Deignan, C.N.D. Sister Kathleen is an Irish-American theologian, author and sacred song writer who has been engaged in the ministry of liturgical musicianship for over forty years. She is currently composer-in-residence of Schola Ministries and is the founder and director of Iona Spirituality Institute at Iona College, New York, and previously directed the Iona Institute for Peace and Justice Studies in Ireland. Sr. Kathleen is a GreenFaith Fellow who recently completed an intensive training in religious environmental leadership. Her work in this area focuses on the prophet legacy of Father Thomas Berry and The Great Work of our time. She has previously served as president of the International Thomas Merton Society, and currently sits on the board of the American Teilhard de Chardin Society.
We can't lose our real connection to the vitality that's brought everything into being; the genius that brought everything into being; the hard work that every single creature which is part of my body — I am cell of their bodies, they are cells of my body — that all these cellular dimensions of this one planetary body we are, are working hard to get well. So I lean into that radically incarnate, visceral, physical, cellular kind of hope. — Sr. Kathleen P. Deignan, C.N.D.
Note: The featured image on today's post is from Gethsemani Abbey, Kentucky. Photo by Patricia Turner is used by permission. Learn more about her and her photography by clicking here: www.aphotographicsage.blogspost.com
Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
Sr. Kathleen Deignan, ed., Thomas Merton: When the Trees Say Nothing — Writings on Nature
Sr. Kathleen Deignan, ed., Thomas Merton: A Book of Hours
Pema Chödrön, When Things Fall Apart: Heart Advice for Difficult Times
Thomas Berry, The Great Work
Anonymous, The Cloud of Unknowing
Charles Péguy, The Portal of the Mystery of Hope
Pope Francis, Laudato Si'
Thomas Merton, Mystics and Zen Masters
Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander
Thomas Merton, The Sign of Jonas
Paul Hawken, Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming
John Moriarty, A Moriarty Reader: Preparing for Early Spring
John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us
Sister Kathleen notes that her music is freely available online. But if you are interested in purchasing her music on CD, here are a few titles that feature the music of Sr. Kathleen:
Ave: Songs of the Congregation of Notre Dame
A Garden Once Again: Songs in Celebration of Creation
The Gift: Songs of the Grateful Heart
For me, I feel my spiritual work is to live within radical unknowing, so my prayer is in "the cloud of unknowing." Speaking of silence, you know that in the school of the cloud of unknowing, it's all about silence. The only thing that you let spring up is a passionate word of love. That's it. For me, it's also mercy. — Sr. Kathleen P. Deignan, C.N.D.
Episode 67: Silence and Nature: A Conversation with Sr. Kathleen Deignan (Part Two)
Hosted by: Kevin Johnson
With: Carl McColman, Cassidy Hall
Guest: Sr. Kathleen Deignan, C.N.D.
Date Recorded: April 22, 2019
I've been reading Thomas Merton since I was a young teenager. I was introduced to him during detention. At school I was always acting out in religion class, and the nun was always throwing me out of the classroom, down to the library. And the nun who was the librarian, we had this thing going, and she'd say, "In detention again, Kathleen Deignan?" and I'd say, "Yes, mother," and she'd say, "Well, read that." Boom! "Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander." The next couple of days, she'd slam something down, it would be my favorite — "The Sign of Jonas" — or something... and then I joined the Congregation, and I was blessed to have an old training, and we had a lot of silence, and I had a lot of Merton.
Kathleen Deignan: Silence and Nature (Part One)
Jun 13, 2019
Sister Kathleen P. Deignan, C.N.D. is an Irish-American theologian, author and sacred song writer who has been engaged in the ministry of liturgical musicianship for over forty years. She is currently composer-in-residence of Schola Ministries and is the founder and director of Iona Spirituality Institute at Iona College, New York, and previously directed the Iona Institute for Peace and Justice Studies in Ireland. Sr. Kathleen is a GreenFaith Fellow who recently completed an intensive training in religious environmental leadership. Her work in this area focuses on the prophet legacy of Father Thomas Berry and The Great Work of our time. She has previously served as president of the International Thomas Merton Society, and currently sits on the board of the American Teilhard de Chardin Society.
We all come from a kind of silence of which we have no idea. We come out of a very mysterious milieu or dimension, and in some ways, if we take the poets seriously, and the mystics, we have been abiding in silence ever before we came into a sound environment. — Sister Kathleen P. Deignan, C.N.D.
Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
Sr. Kathleen Deignan, ed., Thomas Merton: When the Trees Say Nothing — Writings on Nature
Sr. Kathleen Deignan, ed., Thomas Merton: A Book of Hours
Thomas Berry, The Great Work
Thomas Merton, Mystics and Zen Masters
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Selected Writings
Douglas E. Christie, The Blue Sapphire of the Mind: Notes for a Contemplative Ecology
Mary Oliver, Devotions: The Selected Poems
Paul Hawken, Drawdown: The Most Comprehensive Plan Ever Proposed to Reverse Global Warming
Anonymous, The Cloud of Unknowing
Charles Peguy, The Portal of the Mystery of Hope
Wolfhart Pannenberg, Historicity of Nature: Essays on Science and Theology
Sister Kathleen notes that her music is freely available online. But if you are interested in purchasing her music on CD, here are a few titles that feature the music of Sr. Kathleen:
Ave: Songs of the Congregation of Notre Dame
A Garden Once Again: Songs in Celebration of Creation
The Gift: Songs of the Grateful Heart
What silence opened up for me was music, or maybe I can even say it the other way: music opened up silence for me. — Sister Kathleen P. Deignan, C.N.D.
Episode 66: Silence and Nature: A Conversation with Sr. Kathleen Deignan (Part One)
Hosted by: Kevin Johnson
With: Carl McColman, Cassidy Hall
Guest: Sr. Kathleen Deignan, C.N.D.
Date Recorded: April 22, 2019
The challenge for us now, I think, especially for people who are laboring to be awake, or 'woke,' — people who are yearning for the transformation — is that we know it is a profound spiritual work, it is a tremendous spiritual work; we're not going to technologize our way out of this, we are not going to scheme our way out of this; because a new human being has to build up the new planetary civilization for us to go forward. And it will take centuries. — Sister Kathleen P. Deignan, C.N.D.
Carrie Newcomer: Silence, Song, Blessing and Waiting (Part Two)
May 29, 2019
Our conversation with musician, songwriter/poet, and Quaker Carrie Newcomer concludes this week. Carrie continues to share with us her insights into the relationship between poetry and lyrics, between music and silence, between creativity and authenticity — and how love can change everything for the better.
Like the first part of this conversation, she also graces us with performance of several of her songs.
Whether it's coming through a visual art, through music, through poetry, through dance, or some art form in that sense, or the art form of our lives — every time we speak we are putting a certain spirit into the world; every time, every encounter. — Carrie Newcomer
To listen to part one of this interview, click here.
Carrie Newcomer's CDs include The Point of Arrival, The Beautiful Not Yet and Kindred Spirits. She has been described as a “prairie mystic” by the Boston Globe and one who “asks all the right questions” by Rolling Stone.
She regularly works with Parker J. Palmer, who is collaborating with her on The Growing Edge, a website, podcast, and retreat. Three of Newcomer’s songs are included in Palmer’s most recent book, On the Brink of Everything: Grace, Gravity and Getting Old.
"Every time I walk into a room; every time I encounter someone, or I have a conversation, I can step into that space with that internal sense of silence, and waiting; with that internal sense of I'm stepping into this moment in love and blessing." — Carrie Newcomer
Carrie lives in the woods of southern Indiana with her husband and two shaggy dogs. Find her online at www.carrienewcomer.com. Visit The Growing Edge at www.newcomerpalmer.com.
Cassidy Hall and Carrie Newcomer out for a walk in the beauty of nature.
Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
Carrie Newcomer, The Point of Arrival
Carrie Newcomer, The Beautiful Not Yet (CD)
Carrie Newcomer, The Beautiful Not Yet: Poems, Essays and Lyrics
Carrie Newcomer, Kindred Spirits
Carrie Newcomer, Everything is Everywhere
Carrie Newcomer, A Permeable Life (CD)
Carrie Newcomer, A Permeable Life: Poems and Essays
Carrie Newcomer, The Gathering of Spirits
David Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous
Parker J. Palmer, On the Brink of Everything: Grace, Gravity and Getting Old
The songs "Writing a Better Story" and "Learning to Sit Without Knowing" are on the album The Point of Arrival.
Episode 65: Silence, Song, Blessing and Waiting: A Conversation with Carrie Newcomer (Part Two)
Hosted by: Cassidy Hall
With: Carl McColman, Kevin Johnson
Guest: Carrie Newcomer
Date Recorded: May 9, 2019
Carrie Newcomer: Silence, Song, Blessing and Waiting (Part One)
May 21, 2019
What is the relationship between silence and music? This week's guest, acclaimed folk musician and educator Carrie Newcomer, helps us to explore this provocative question.
"To do music you have to be comfortable with silence... a song without the pauses is just cacophony. You have to be able to breathe, and take a breath. Juxtaposition: the sound, and the moments of pause." — Carrie Newcomer
Carrie Newcomer's CDs include The Point of Arrival, The Beautiful Not Yet and Kindred Spirits. She has been described as a “prairie mystic” by the Boston Globe and one who “asks all the right questions” by Rolling Stone.
She regularly works with Parker J. Palmer in live programs, including Healing the Heart of Democracy: A Gathering of Spirits for the Common Good and What We Need is Here: Hope, Hard Times, and Human Possibility. Newcomer and Palmer also are actively collaborating on The Growing Edge, a website, podcast, and retreat. Three of Newcomer’s songs are included in Palmer’s most recent book, On the Brink of Everything: Grace, Gravity and Getting Old.
Other special collaborations include presentations with neuroscientist Jill Bolte Taylor, author Rabbi Sandy Sasso, and environmental author Scott Russell Sanders.
"I've always been a seeker.... I was the little kid who asked the questions you weren't supposed to ask in Sunday School." — Carrie Newcomer
Carrie lives in the woods of southern Indiana with her husband and two shaggy dogs. Find her online at www.carrienewcomer.com. Visit The Growing Edge at www.newcomerpalmer.com.
This is part one of a two-part interview. To listen to part two, click here.
"What I discovered is that you never see the world or anyone or anything the same once you've blessed it. Once you've looked at it that way, it's hard to look at it as anything else anymore." — Carrie Newcomer
Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
Carrie Newcomer, The Point of Arrival
Carrie Newcomer, The Beautiful Not Yet (CD)
Carrie Newcomer, The Beautiful Not Yet: Poems, Essays and Lyrics
Carrie Newcomer, Kindred Spirits
Carrie Newcomer, Everything is Everywhere
Carrie Newcomer, A Permeable Life (CD)
Carrie Newcomer, A Permeable Life: Poems and Essays
Carrie Newcomer, The Gathering of Spirits
Parker J. Palmer, On the Brink of Everything: Grace, Gravity and Getting Old
Marilynne Robinson, Gilead
Beyoncé, Beyoncé
Bill Harley, First Bird Call
Mary Oliver, American Primitive: Poems
Anonymous, The Cloud of Unknowing
The song "Holy as a Day is Spent" is from the album The Gathering of Spirits. The song "The Beautiful Not Yet" is the title song of the album The Beautiful Not Yet. The song "Learning to Sit Without Knowing" is on the album The Point of Arrival.
"I live in southern Indiana; something really good happened to my writing when I gave myself permission to sound like a Hoosier! What I mean by that is that I gave myself permission to sound like the person I am. I'm so midwestern — I am the lady that brings the casserole when someone's sick, you know, and I'm just really comfortable with that... my truest voice, my most powerful voice would always be my most authentic voice, my most connected voice." — Carrie Newcomer
Episode 64: Silence, Song, Blessing and Waiting: A Conversation with Carrie Newcomer (Part One)
Hosted by: Cassidy Hall
With: Carl McColman, Kevin Johnson
Guest: Carrie Newcomer
Date Recorded: May 9, 2019
James Finley: A Conversation on the Spirituality of Silence (Part Two)
May 13, 2019
In today's episode, the hosts of Encountering Silence speak with contemplative teacher James Finley, following his reflection on the spirituality of silence which we released last week as episode #62. If you have not yet listened to episode 62, we encourage you to do so before listening to this episode — click here to listen to it.
“I don't know how to listen. I think I'm afraid to listen. Because listening implies an act of trust. When I get quiet, the voices of pain come up inside of me and drown me out. Thomas Merton said, 'We live in a world that has forgotten how to listen.'” — James Finley
To lead us into his reflections on silence, James offers different ways of understanding silence that he first learned from a Jesuit priest/Zen sensei; then takes us through a thoughtful commentary on the ancient monastic practice of lectio divina. He reflects on the importance of listening — both in the spiritual life as well as in ordinary human wellness.
If you’d like to hear James Finley’s first episode with Encountering Silence, follow this link: Silence and Vulnerability.
“Everything said in this monastery should come out of silence, and its fruit should be to deepen the silence... We should never forget that all of our noise comes out of silence and is very quickly returning to it.” — Thomas Merton, as quoted by James Finley
Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
James Finley, Merton’s Palace of Nowhere
James Finley, The Contemplative Heart
James Finley, Christian Meditation
James Finley, Thomas Merton’s Path to the Palace of Nowhere
James Finley, Meister Eckhart’s Living Wisdom
Thomas Merton, Medieval Cistercian History
The Desert Mothers and Fathers, Early Christian Wisdom Sayings
T. S. Eliot, The Four Quartets
Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander
Thomas Merton, Seeds of Destruction
Martin Buber, I and Thou
David Brooks, The Second Mountain
Richard Rohr, Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer
Kathleen Deignan, Thomas Merton: A Book of Hours
Hafiz, I Heard God Laughing: Poems of Hope and Joy
Thomas G. Hand, Always a Pilgrim: Walking the Zen Christian Path
“How do we contemplatively listen to the evening news? How can I be contemplatively present to the complexities and challenges of the real world?” — James Finley
Episode 63: A Conversation on the Spirituality of Silence: with James Finley
Hosted by: Cassidy Hall
With: Kevin Johnson, Carl McColman
Guest: James Finley
Date Recorded: April 18, 2019
James Finley: Reflections on the Spirituality of Silence (Part One)
May 08, 2019
Contemplative author, teacher, retreat leader, and psychologist James Finley returns to the Encountering Silence podcast this week. At James's suggestion, when we recorded this episode we began by giving him the opportunity to share his own reflections on the spirituality of silence. After he finished this presentation, we engaged in a time of shared dialogue in response to his reflections. This week's episode consists of James Finley's reflections; next week's episode includes our dialogue in response to his talk. Click here to listen to part two.
"The poet cannot make the poem happen, but the poet can assume the inner stance that offers the least resistance to the gift of the poem... lovers cannot force the oceanic oneness, but can assume the inner stance that offers the least resistance to the gift of that." — James Finley
To lead us into his reflections on silence, James offers different ways of understanding silence that he first learned from a Jesuit priest/Zen sensei; then takes us through a thoughtful commentary on the ancient monastic practice of lectio divina. He reflects on the importance of listening — both in the spiritual life as well as in ordinary human wellness.
If you'd like to hear James Finley's first episode with Encountering Silence, follow this link: Silence and Vulnerability.
"Can I become so silent that I can hear God speaking me into being, all things into being, the divinity or the holiness, the virginal newness of all things?" — James Finley
Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
James Finley, Merton’s Palace of Nowhere
James Finley, The Contemplative Heart
James Finley, Christian Meditation
James Finley, Thomas Merton’s Path to the Palace of Nowhere
James Finley, Meister Eckhart’s Living Wisdom
Thomas Merton, Medieval Cistercian History
Guigo II, The Ladder of Monks & Twelve Meditations
T. S. Eliot, The Four Quartets
Teresa of Ávila, The Interior Castle
Rollo May, Love and Will
John Duns Scotus, Philosophical Writings
Thomas Aquinas, Selected Writings
Jean-Baptiste Chautard, The Soul of the Apostolate
Martin Heidegger, Being and Time
Krista Tippett, Becoming Wise
Mary Oliver, Devotions: The Selected Poems
"The mystic isn't someone who says 'listen to what I've experienced,' the mystic says 'look what love's done to me.'" — James Finley
Episode 62: Reflections on the Spirituality of Silence: A Talk by James Finley (Part One)
Hosted by: Cassidy Hall
With: Carl McColman, Kevin Johnson
Guest: James Finley
Date Recorded: April 18, 2019
"Our listening is an echo of God's eternal listening to us. We might say poetically, that God says to us, 'I created you to have someone to listen to, because I just love it when you talk to me like this. And my listening, I created in my heart an echo of my eternal listening to you, so that each unto each, the listening and the word, unites in a kind of union." — James Finley
This episode concludes our two-part conversation with author and spiritual director Therese Taylor-Stinson, the founder of the Spiritual Directors of Color Network. To listen to part one, please click here.
"All contemplation should be followed by action; they are there for one another. The reason to contemplate anything would be to have clarity about what action to take next." — Therese Taylor-Stinson
Therese Taylor-Stinson is the co-editor of Embodied Spirits: Stories of Spiritual Directors of Color, and the editor of Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around — Stories of Contemplation and Justice. She is an ordained deacon and elder in the Presbyterian Church (PCUSA), a lay pastoral caregiver, and a graduate of and an associate faculty member of the Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation, where she previously served as a member of the board.
She is the founder of the Spiritual Directors of Color Network, an international, ecumenical/interfaith association of persons of color with a ministry of spiritual accompaniment. A native of Washington DC, she now lives in Maryland. Her ministry, like her books, explores the intersection of contemplative spirituality and the ongoing struggle for social justice and the dismantling of racism.
"Trauma doesn't have to be something physical, where a bone is broken or blood is seen or anything like that. Anything that silences you and keeps you from defending yourself against something coming against you is trauma." — Therese Taylor-Stinson
In this week's episode, Therese builds on our previous conversation by exploration the relationship between silence and trauma, talking about how the science of epigenetics has revealed how trauma effects people over generations. She also invites us to explore the question of how contemplation can be misused as a way of hiding from the problems facing our world — but how it can also be a meaningful way for people to awaken to what is real and what needs our collective attention.
Acknowledging the painful links between Christianity, racism, and white supremacy, Therese offers a word of hope — that we do not need to be shaped by the mistakes of the past, but can work together in pursuit of true justice and reconciliation for today and tomorrow. Comparing the struggle against racism to a relay race, she hopes that the steps that we take today can help to make the world a better place for our grandchildren.
To learn more about the Spiritual Directors of Color Network, visit www.sdcnetwork.org.
Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
Therese Taylor-Stinson (ed.), Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around — Stories of Contemplation and Justice (includes essays by Jacqueline Smith-Crooks, Lerita Coleman Brown, Maisie Sparks, Jung Eun Sophia Park, Soyinka Rahim, and Ineda P. Adesanya, among others)
Therese Taylor-Stinson et al. (editors), Embodied Spirits: Stories of Spiritual Directors of Color
Serene Jones, Trauma and Grace: Theology in a Ruptured World
Yūsuf Ībish and Ileana Marculescu, eds., Contemplation and Action in World Religions
Martin Luther King, Jr., I Have a Dream and the Letter from Birmingham Jail
James Cone, The Cross and the Lynching Tree
Brian McDermott, SJ, Word Become Flesh: Dimensions of Christology
Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America
Howard Thurman, Jesus and the Disinherited
Episode 61: Silence, Contemplation, and Justice: A Conversation with Therese Taylor-Stinson (Part Two)
Hosted by: Carl McColman
With: Cassidy Hall, Kevin Johnson
Guest: Therese Taylor-Stinson
Date Recorded: March 25, 2019
Therese Taylor-Stinson is the co-editor of Embodied Spirits: Stories of Spiritual Directors of Color, and the editor of Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around — Stories of Contemplation and Justice. She is an ordained deacon and elder in the Presbyterian Church (PCUSA), a lay pastoral caregiver, and a graduate of and an associate faculty member of the Shalem Institute for Spiritual Formation, where she previously served as a member of the board.
She is the founder of the Spiritual Directors of Color Network, an international, ecumenical/interfaith association of persons of color with a ministry of spiritual accompaniment. A native of Washington DC, she now lives in Maryland. Her ministry, like her books, explores the intersection of contemplative spirituality and the ongoing struggle for social justice and the dismantling of racism.
I've always loved nature, I love trees... I love the ocean, I love the sunrise and the moonrise... those kinds of things bring me into silence in a kind of pondering and sitting with what we call 'God', but to me is more 'Mystery'." — Therese Taylor-Stinson
In this first part of a two-part episode, Therese shares with us her early experience of contemplative silence, formed by her education in Catholic schools as well as her early encounters with the silence of nature. She goes on to show how her journey as a contemplative and a spiritual director has impacted her experience as a woman of color. Of particular interest is her insights into the contemplative dimension of the civil rights movement, particularly in terms of the under-appreciated contribution of Howard Thurman.
"For some people of color, silence is uncomfortable — it feels oppressive or imposing, it makes them go places or feel things they're not ready for, or that they aren't ready to express to me. We have to be really careful with silence... I don't know that silence is a requirement to find that still place within." — Therese Taylor-Stinson
In the second half of today's episode, Therese offers insight into the contribution of people of color, not only to contemplative spirituality, but to Christianity as a whole — and how those contributions have been erased from history through the dynamics of racism — leading to a "silencing" toxic in its nature.
This is part one of a two-part interview; to hear the second part of this conversation, click here.
To learn more about the Spiritual Directors of Color Network, visit www.sdcnetwork.org.
Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
Therese Taylor-Stinson (ed.), Ain’t Gonna Let Nobody Turn Me Around — Stories of Contemplation and Justice (includes essays by Jacqueline Smith-Crooks, Lerita Coleman Brown, Maisie Sparks, Jung Eun Sophia Park, Soyinka Rahim, and Ineda P. Adesanya, among others)
Therese Taylor-Stinson et al. (editors), Embodied Spirits: Stories of Spiritual Directors of Color
Howard Thurman, Jesus and the Disinherited
Lerita Coleman Brown, When the Heart Speaks, Listen: Discovering Inner Wisdom
Maisie Sparks, Holy Shakespeare!
Jung Eun Sophia Park, Border-Crossing Spirituality: Transformation in the Borderland
Soyinka Rahim, Bibo Love
Ineda P. Adesanya, Kaleidoscope: Broadening the Palette in the Art of Spiritual Direction
Martin Laird, An Ocean of Light: Contemplation, Transformation and Liberation
Anonymous, The Cloud of Unknowing
Barbara A. Holmes, Joy Unspeakable: Contemplative Practices of the Black Church
Desert Fathers and Mothers, Early Christian Wisdom Sayings
Tilden Edwards, Living in the Presence
Thomas Keating, Open Mind, Open Heart: The Contemplative Dimension of the Gospel
John Main, Door to Silence: An Anthology for Meditation
Gay L. Byron, Symbolic Blackness and Ethnic Difference in Early Christian Literature
Albert J. Raboteau, Slave Religion: The "Invisible Institution" in the Antebellum South
John S. Mbiti, Introduction to African Religions
Cynthia Bourgeault: The Heart of Silence (Part Two)
Apr 08, 2019
Cynthia Bourgeault continues her conversation with the Encountering Silence team, offering insight into silence as a deeper way of knowing, contemplative Christianity as a unique spiritual path, and centering prayer as a singular practice of deep meditation.
This is part two of a two-part interview. Click here to listen to part one.
"There is no 'toxic' silence, because in real silence there is a power of presence... when you enter silence, you are never alone, you enter a luminous imaginal stream of help and reality at a higher order of being." — Cynthia Bourgeault
Encountering Silence talks to Cynthia Bourgeault
"What has really capped and is a cancer in Christian spirituality nowadays... is the anger... the only antidote to toxic anger lies at the level of the unitive heart." — Cynthia Bourgeault
She offers us a new way of thinking about what we have, in the past, referred to as "toxic silence" on this podcast. "There is no toxic silence," she declares, going on to draw a helpful distinction between true silence and what she describes as "a destroying of the voice." She also offers insight into what she sees as the important tasks facing our time as we seek to embrace new "artforms" of silence, as alternatives to some of the sexist, authoritarian, or obsolete ways in which silence has been practiced — or marginalized — in the past.
Her thoughts on the challenges facing Christians today — particularly the temptation to give in to anger — seem particularly timely, not only for contemplatives but for all who seek to integrate spirituality with the demands of everyday life. Instead of anger and panic, she invites us to stand present, and to remain present with whatever arises, in fidelity to "the highest benchmark of love."
"The highest benchmark of love, courtesy, generosity and beauty that is put into the world will never vanish from the world. And when it's time, it will restore itself instantly." — Cynthia Bourgeault
Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
Cynthia Bourgeault, Love is the Answer: What is the Question?
Cynthia Bourgeault, Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening
Cynthia Bourgeault, The Heart of Centering Prayer
Cynthia Bourgeault, The Wisdom Jesus
Cynthia Bourgeault, Love is Stronger Than Death
Cynthia Bourgeault, The Meaning of Mary Magdalene
Cynthia Bourgeault, The Wisdom Way of Knowing
G. I. Gurdjieff, In Search of Being: The Fourth Way to Consciousness
Jakob Boehme, Genius of the Transcendent
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Divine Milieu
Anonymous, The Cloud of Unknowing
Thomas Keating, Reflections on the Unknowable
John Chrysostom, On the Incomprehensible Nature of God
Robert Bly, Iron John: A Book About Men
William Meninger, The Loving Search for God: Contemplative Prayer and the Cloud of Unknowing
George Fox, The Journal of George Fox
Thomas Merton, Contemplative Prayer
Pythagoras, The Golden Verses
Plato, The Complete Works
Doc Childre, The Heartmath Solution
The Dalai Lama, Refining Gold: Stages in Buddhist Contemplative Practice
Sigmund Freud, The Basic Writings of Sigmund Freud
Carl Jung, The Portable Jung
John Welwood, Toward a Psychology of Awakening
Franz Kafka, The Complete Stories
Richard Rohr, The Universal Christ
Ilia Delio, The Unbearable Wholeness of Being: God, Evolution, and the Power of Love
Bruno Barnhart, The Good Wine: Reading John from the Center
Wallace Stevens, The Collected Poems
Elias Marechal, Tears of An Innocent God
Maurice Nicoll, Psychological Commentaries on the Teaching of Gurdjieff and Ouspensky
Episode 59: Encountering the Heart of Silence: A Conversation with Cynthia Bourgeault (Part Two)
Hosted by: Carl McColman
With: Cassidy Hall, Kevin Johnson
Guest: The Rev. Cynthia Bourgeault, PhD
Date Recorded: February 25, 2019
"Silence provides the conditions for a radical inner honestly...
Cynthia Bourgeault: The Heart of Silence (Part One)
Apr 03, 2019
Cynthia Bourgeault has embraced silence and the contemplative life from a variety of perspectives: as a child in Quaker schools, as an Episcopal priest, as a student of the Gurdjieff "Fourth Way" and of centering prayer working with Fr. Thomas Keating, and now as a teacher both in her own Wisdom Schools and as part of the Living School. She is also the author of numerous books and a widely sought-after speaker and retreat leader. Joining us via Skype from Tucson shortly before she led a retreat, she offers a wide-ranging, insightful conversation on topics ranging from mysticism to inner transformation to the practical ways to develop contemplative culture in an ordinary neighborhood church — and why the local parish may not be the ideal environment for fostering deep interior work.
This is part one of a two-part interview.
Encountering Silence talks to Cynthia Bourgeault
When people gather in silence, a deeper kind of collective, synergistic, numinous knowing unfolds. And that’s the only knowing that’s worth a damn, particularly when you’re working with the infinite. — Cynthia Bourgeault
Cynthia shares how her love for silence originated with her early education in Quaker schools, where she recognized silence as a "liturgical expression and mode of divine communion." There she discovered silence not merely as the absence of noise, but as a sacred container of presence. For her, after a long meandering journey from Christian Science to Episcopal ordination, she became (in her words) a "Trappist junkie" as she began to study centering prayer with Fr. Thomas Keating, which for her meant a coming home to the silence she had learned to love as a child.
You can't do infinite truth in a dialogical, debating mode. — Cynthia Bourgeault
She offers keen insight into the dynamic interplay not only between silence and religion, but also silence as a medium by which we can experience inner transformation — a rewiring of our inner "operating system" as we move from the dualistic consciousness that is encoded in our language to the radical nonduality that only contemplative silence can reveal. With insights into the relationship between silence and philosophy, silence and psychology (including the ways in which western psychology misunderstands silence), and how monastic practices have encoded rich tools for using silence as a way to access nondual seeing, Bourgeault offers a rich and compelling statement for how silence is literally crucial for human growth, development, wellness, and knowing.
Centering Prayer, in complete alignment with the radically surrendered heart of Christ, offers Christians a way to jump into the deep luminous river of silence, and to know in a different way... it's a 100% Christian experience of the deeper waters of silence." — Cynthia Bourgeault
Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
Cynthia Bourgeault, Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening
Cynthia Bourgeault, The Heart of Centering Prayer
Cynthia Bourgeault, The Wisdom Jesus
Cynthia Bourgeault, Love is Stronger Than Death
Cynthia Bourgeault, The Meaning of Mary Magdalene
Cynthia Bourgeault, The Wisdom Way of Knowing
G. I. Gurdjieff, In Search of Being: The Fourth Way to Consciousness
Jakob Boehme, Genius of the Transcendent
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Divine Milieu
Anonymous, The Cloud of Unknowing
Thomas Keating, Reflections on the Unknowable
John Chrysostom, On the Incomprehensible Nature of God
Robert Bly, Iron John: A Book About Men
William Meninger, The Loving Search for God: Contemplative Prayer and the Cloud of Unknowing
George Fox, The Journal of George Fox
Thomas Merton, Contemplative Prayer
Pythagoras, The Golden Verses
Plato, The Complete Works
Doc Childre, The Heartmath Solution
The Dalai Lama, Refining Gold: Stages in Buddhist Contemplative Practice
Sigmund Freud, The Basic Writings of Sigmund Freud
Carl Jung, The Portable Jung
Martin Laird: Silent Land, Luminous Ocean (Part Three)
Mar 28, 2019
Our conversation with contemplative author Martin Laird concludes with this episode.
To hear part one, click here.
To hear part two, click here.
"In a spiritual path there are no 'outcomes assessments'." — Martin Laird
After recording an interview with just Carl and Kevin, Fr. Martin graciously agreed to an additional recording session with all three of us. Today's episode features that second conversation, including Cassidy. Fr. Martin deepens and clarifies some of his thoughts on issues already discussed, including discerning the distinctions between secular mindfulness practices and Christian contemplative practices.
"Simply being aware of thoughts as they go by — yes, that's fine. But who is doing the 'aware-ing'?" — Martin Laird
Some of the resources and authors we mention in this conversation with Martin Laird:
Martin Laird, Into the Silent Land: A Guide to the Christian Practice of Contemplation,
Martin Laird, A Sunlit Absence: Silence, Awareness and Contemplation
Martin Laird, An Ocean of Light: Contemplation, Transformation and Liberation.
Martin Laird, Gregory of Nyssa and the Grasp of Faith
R. S. Thomas, Collected Later Poems, 1988-2000
"This whole business of silence is B.S.-proof. It's not a contemplative mascara... The attraction to things spiritual, the attaction to silence, to contemplative practices or disciplines, can actually be a defense against what contemplation will make you face." — Martin Laird
Episode 57: Silent Land, Luminous Ocean: A Conversation with Martin Laird (Part Three)
Hosted by: Kevin Johnson
With: Carl McColman, Cassidy Hall
Guest: Fr. Martin Laird, OSA
Date Recorded: February 25, 2019
"A self 'unselfed' of self is free, is fully created, and becomes a vehicle of compassion because it has overcome the sense of a separate self." — Martin Laird
Martin Laird: Silent Land, Luminous Ocean (Part Two)
Mar 19, 2019
Our conversation with contemplative author Martin Laird continues with this episode. To hear part one, click here.
"What I mean by 'Contemplative' is ultimately overcoming the illusion of separation of God, and that illusion is sustained and maintained by inner noise in our head. And everything about our culture keeps our attention riveted there." — Martin Laird
Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
Martin Laird, Into the Silent Land: A Guide to the Christian Practice of Contemplation,
Martin Laird, A Sunlit Absence: Silence, Awareness and Contemplation
Martin Laird, An Ocean of Light: Contemplation, Transformation and Liberation.
Martin Laird, Gregory of Nyssa and the Grasp of Faith
Miguel Farias & Dr Catherine Wikholm, The Buddha Pill: Can Meditation Change You?
Evagrius Ponticus, The Praktikos & Chapters on Prayer
John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent
The Desert Mothers and Fathers, Early Christian Wisdom Sayings
Bernard of Clairvaux, Selected Works
Anonymous, The Cloud of Unknowing
John of the Cross, Collected Works
Meister Eckhart, Selected Writings
John Ruusbroec, The Spiritual Espousals and Other Works
Thomas Merton, Dialogues with Silence
Thomas Keating, Open Mind, Open Heart: The Contemplative Dimension of the Gospel
Richard Rohr, The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See
Teresa of Ávila, The Interior Castle
Howard Thurman, Essential Writings
Martin Luther King Jr., Strength to Love
Diarmaid MacCulloch, Silence: A Christian History
"Life itself is too wild to be tamed by the social constructs that we try to shoehorn it into." — Martin Laird
Episode 56: Silent Land, Luminous Ocean: A Conversation with Martin Laird (Part Two)
Hosted by: Kevin Johnson
With: Carl McColman
Guest: Fr. Martin Laird, OSA
Date Recorded: February 18, 2019
"In deepest silence the self is 'unselfed' of self... Silence 'unothers' the other." — Martin Laird
Martin Laird: Silent Land, Luminous Ocean (Part One)
Mar 14, 2019
Martin Laird is the author of three highly-regarded books on Christian contemplative spirituality: Into the Silent Land: A Guide to the Christian Practice of Contemplation, A Sunlit Absence: Silence, Awareness and Contemplation, and An Ocean of Light: Contemplation, Transformation and Liberation.
He is an Augustinian friar, and Professor of Early Christian Studies at Villanova University. He is also the author of an academic monograph, Gregory of Nyssa and the Grasp of Faith. Father Martin lectures and leads retreats widely through the United States, the United Kingdom and Ireland. His books are deeply grounded in the Christian tradition and yet are accessible guides to how silence integrates into prayer and everyday life.
Fr. Martin joined Carl and Kevin for a conversation over Skype, and a week later spoke with us again, this time with Cassidy joining us as well. Thanks to his generosity, this is our longest interview yet, and we hope our listeners will find insight and meaning in this thoughtful and perceptive conversation on silence and the spiritual life.
The 'silent land' is you. — Martin Laird
Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
Martin Laird, Into the Silent Land: A Guide to the Christian Practice of Contemplation,
Martin Laird, A Sunlit Absence: Silence, Awareness and Contemplation
Martin Laird, An Ocean of Light: Contemplation, Transformation and Liberation.
Martin Laird, Gregory of Nyssa and the Grasp of Faith
Gregory of Nyssa, From Glory to Glory
Nikodemos of the Holy Mountain and Makarios of Corinth, Compilers:
The Philokalia, The Complete Text
Volume One
Volume Two
Volume Three
Volume Four
Early Fathers from the Philokalia
Writings from the Philokalia on Prayer of the Heart
Thomas Keating, Intimacy with God: An Introduction to Centering Prayer
Cynthia Bourgeault, The Heart of Centering Prayer
Laurence Freeman, Web of Silence: Letters to Meditators
John Main, Door to Silence: An Anthology for Meditation
John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent
Carl Rogers, On Becoming a Person
Albert Einstein, Ideas and Opinions
The Desert Mothers and Fathers, Early Christian Wisdom Sayings
Teresa of Ávila, Collected Works Volume 2: The Way of Perfection and The Interior Castle
John of the Cross, Collected Works of St. John of the Cross
Elias Marechal, Tears of an Innocent God
Augustine, The Confessions of Saint Augustine
Episode 55: Silent Land, Luminous Ocean: A Conversation with Martin Laird (Part One)
Hosted by: Kevin Johnson
With: Carl McColman
Guest: Fr. Martin Laird, OSA
Date Recorded: February 18, 2019
Jane Brox: The Social History of Silence
Mar 06, 2019
If silence could tell us a story about itself, what would it say?
This could be the question that Jane Brox answers in her most recent book, Silence: A Social History of One of the Least Understood Elements in Our Lives (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2019). Brox is the award-winning author of several acclaimed works of literary nonfiction, including Brilliant: The Evolution of Artificial Light and Clearing Land: Legacies of the American Farm.
In her fascinating study, Brox explores how silence impacts people both as individuals and as communities, by considering how silence has shaped two of the most archetypal institutions in western society: the monastery and the penitentiary. But she also considers the ways in which silence has particularly impacted the lives of women — both inside and outside such institutions.
Silence has always been important to my life, partly because I'm a writer and to me, there's never enough silence when I'm working. Not only when I'm working at the page, but before and afterwards — that's the place in which the work grows. — Jane Brox
Brox offers us tremendous insight into how silence is critical to her process as a creative writer. Having first encountered silence in her childhood on a farm, she grew up to embrace the writer's life, and discovering how essential silence has been to her ability to think — and create — in a comprehensive way.
She talks about having a long-standing appreciation for Thomas Merton, which led to her organizing her book around his story — and the story of an obscure nineteenth-century convict from America's first penitentiary. But she also looks at how women have experienced silence in some very different ways from men's experience of silence.
What emerged for Brox was a deepened appreciation for just how complex the human relationship to silence really is — that a simplistic distinction between "imposed silence" (in the penitentiary) and "chosen silence" (in the monastery) simply does not adequately reveal just how nuanced the social history of silence truly is.
Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
Jane Brox, Silence: A Social History of One of the Least Understood Elements in Our Lives
Jane Brox, Brilliant: The Evolution of Artificial Light
Jane Brox, Clearing Land: Legacies of the American Farm
Jane Brox, Five Thousand Days Like This One: An American Family History
Jane Brox, Here and Nowhere Else: Late Seasons of a Farm and its Family
Thomas Merton, The Seven Storey Mountain
Thomas Merton, The Sign of Jonas
Thomas Merton, The Intimate Merton: His Life from His Journals
Thomas Merton, A Life in Letters
William Shakespeare, The Complete Works
Benjamin Rush, The Autobiography of Benjamin Rush
Eugenia Ginzburg, Journey Into the Whirlwind
Sara Maitland, A Book of Silence
Tillie Olsen, Silences
Seamus Heaney, Field Work
Agnes Day, Light in the Shoe Shop: A Cobbler's Contemplations
Silence is an extreme place; and it's total exposure. Even the most balanced person is tested there. That's in part why people seek it, to see where they will go; that's in party why people flee it, because it's so terrifying. There's no protection in the silence... There's no place to hide in silence. — Jane Brox
Episode 54: The Social History of Silence: A Conversation with Jane Brox
Hosted by: Kevin Johnson
With: Cassidy Hall, Carl McColman
Guest: Jane Brox
Date Recorded: February 4, 2019
Mary Margaret Funk, OSB: Silence Matters, Part Two (Episode 53)
Feb 27, 2019
Today’s episode is part two of a two-part interview. Click here to listen to part one.
Sr. Mary Margaret Funk, OSB continues her conversation with Cassidy, recorded at Sr. Meg's monastery in Beech Grove, IN. Toward the end of the conversation, Kevin, Carl (and Carl's wife, Fran) joined the conversation via Skype.
"In Mepkin Abbey we all have to drink our coffee together... you can't take your coffee cup to your room... the first day I resented it, I said 'nobody messes with my coffee'... the second day, I just sat there and drank the coffee; the third day, I actually listened to the birds wake up, the third day I noticed who also was in the room; the fourth day I actually tasted silence, and I brought that back home with me." — Mary Margaret Funk, OSB
She reflects on how Jesus represents a path from violence to healing, plays more music on her recorders, muses on the best practice for interreligious dialogue ("practice your own faith and understand others"), and leads Cassidy on an exercise for training attentiveness.
Kevin and Carl ask Sr. Meg additional questions about interspiritual practice, on cultivating an "ethos of silence" in the church, and how to best teach the practice of silence in our time — particularly the question of contemplative teaching online.
Sr. Meg rounds out her conversation with a wonderful description of "five cups of coffee" that illustrate her encounter with silence and the presence of God. Don't miss it!
"If I could put what I believe about God in fewer than 200 words, it would be this: Jesus is the way for us to shift from violence to healing..." — Mary Margaret Funk, OSB
Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
Mary Margaret Funk, Thoughts Matter
Mary Margaret Funk, Tools Matter
Mary Margaret Funk, Humility Matters
Mary Margaret Funk, Lectio Matters
Mary Margaret Funk, Discernment Matters
Mary Margaret Funk, Renouncing Violence
Mary Margaret Funk, Islam Is
Jim Forest, At Play in the Lion's Den: A Biography and Memoir of Daniel Berrigan
Daniel Berrigan, Essential Writings
The Dalai Lama, My Spiritual Journey
The Desert Mothers and Fathers, Early Christian Wisdom Sayings
John Cassian, The Institutes
John Cassian, The Conferences
Thomas Merton, Silence, Joy
Evagrius Ponticus, The Greek Ascetic Corpus
Thomas Keating, Invitation to Love: The Way of Christian Contemplation
Paul Ricoeur, Memory, History, Forgetting
Thérèse of Lisieux, The Story of a Soul
Pedro Arrupe, Essential Writings
The Glencairn Sisters, Glencairn Abbey: A Year in the Life
Episode 53: Silence Matters: A Conversation with Sr. Mary Margaret Funk, OSB (Part Two)
Hosted by: Cassidy Hall
With: Kevin Johnson, Carl McColman
Special Guest: Fran McColman
Guest: Mary Margaret Funk, OSB
Date Recorded: February 5, 2019
Mary Margaret Funk, OSB: Silence Matters, Part One (Episode 52)
Feb 20, 2019
Mary Margaret Funk, OSB, is a member of Our Lady of Grace Monastery in Beech Grove, Indiana. She entered this Benedictine community in 1961 and served as the prioress from 1985 to 1993. In 1994 Sister Meg became the Executive Director of the Monastic Interreligious Dialogue Board. She has been in formal dialogue with people of the Hindu, Zen Buddhist, Islamic, Confucian, and Taoist traditions.
Sr. Meg chats with Fran, Carl and Kevin via Skype.
She holds graduate degrees from Catholic University (1973) and Indiana University (1979). She is a graduate of Epiphany Certification Program of Formative Spirituality (2002). She received a grant from the Lilly Foundation to explore the history of Christian spirituality and its ongoing relevant to women religious today.
"Music is the closest thing there is to silence, actually; it's a way to taste silence." — Sister Mary Margaret Funk, OSB
Sr. Meg is the author of numerous books, including the "Matters Series" books on traditional Christian spirituality: Thoughts Matter: Discovering the Spiritual Journey, Tools Matter: Beginning the Spiritual Journey, Humility Matters: Toward Purity of Heart, Lectio Matters: Before the Burning Bush, and Discernment Matters: Listening with the Ear of the Heart. Her other books include Renouncing Violence: Practice from the Monastic Tradition and Islam Is: An Experience of Dialogue and Devotion.
Our Lady of Grace Monastery
When we approached Sister Meg to invite her to join our conversation on silence, we were delighted to learn that her monastery is only a short drive from Cassidy's new home in Indiana! So this episode was recorded by Cassidy in person at the music room of Our Lady of Grace Monastery. In part two of this interview, Kevin and Carl — and Carl's wife, Fran — joined the conversation via Skype.
"Solitude gives you a house in which to be silent." — Sister Mary Margaret Funk, OSB
Sr. Meg is a gifted teacher, and our conversation quickly turned into a lesson in spiritual history and practice. Using the themes of her books as an organizing principle, Sr. Meg skillfully explained the central role that silence plays to Benedictine spirituality — and indeed to Christian spirituality as a whole. And while her insights dove deep into her "home tradition" of Christian spirituality, her years of insight into interreligious dialogue added a richness and depth to her reflections on how Christians and persons of other faiths can learn from one another — and how honoring the integrity of their own traditions enhances interfaith dialogue.
Sr. Meg playing the recorder
As if all this weren't enough, Sr. Meg is also an amateur musician, and played several tunes for us on her tenor and alto recorders! She now has the distinction of being our first guest to explore silence not only with her words, but with her music as well.
Today’s episode is part one of a two-part interview. Click here to listen to part two.
"Everybody knows what violence is, but they don't know what renouncing is." — Sister Mary Margaret Funk
Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
Mary Margaret Funk, Thoughts Matter
Mary Margaret Funk, Tools Matter
Mary Margaret Funk, Humility Matters
Mary Margaret Funk, Lectio Matters
Mary Margaret Funk, Discernment Matters
Mary Margaret Funk, Renouncing Violence
Mary Margaret Funk, Islam Is
St. Benedict, The Rule of Saint Benedict
John Cassian, The Institutes
John Cassian, The Conferences
The Dalai Lama, The Art of Happiness
Evagrius Ponticus, The Greek Ascetic Corpus
Pseudo-Macarius, The Fifty Spiritual Homilies
Columba Stewart, Prayer and Community
Henri de Lubac, Medieval Exegesis, Volume I
Henri de Lubac, Medieval Exegesis, Volume II
Henri de Lubac, Medieval Exegesis, Volume III
Thomas Keating, Open Mind Open Heart
Rene Girard, Things Hidden Since the Foundation of the World
Episode 52: Silence Matters: A Conversation with ...
Shirley Hershey Showalter: Simplicity and Silence, Part Two (Episode 51)
Feb 11, 2019
Today’s episode is part two of a two-part interview. Click here to listen to part one.
Our conversation continues with Shirley Hershey Showalter, the author of Blush: A Mennonite Girl Meets a Glittering World.
Singing is to a Mennonite what silence is to a Quaker. For me, singing is a way of bringing silence and voice together. — Shirley Hershey Showalter
She grew up "a barefoot girl" on a Mennonite farm near Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where her ancestors tilled the soil for generations. Speaking of her childhood, she describes her earliest encounters with silence as embedded in the experience of the vast spaciousness of the farm. Her memoir explored the tension she experienced "in the silence of her own heart" between the traditional culture of the Mennonites and her desire to discover her own voice as a teenager and young woman in the 1960s — ultimately choosing to embrace her Mennonite identity, but very much on her own terms.
Being here in the Shenandoah Valley, looking out at the mountains, every morning it's part of my spiritual practice to just sit in my red chair and look at the mountains. — Shirley Hershey Showalter
Shirley Hershey Showalter in Glendalough, Ireland
Our conversation in today's episode begins with looking at the affinity between Anabaptist/Mennonite spirituality and Benedictine or monastic spirituality, including the spirituality of Celtic Christians. She shares how Irish mystic/poet John O'Donohue wrote eloquently of the contemplative nature of the mountains. She reveals why she came to call her memoir Blushand reveals who her silence heroes are (one living, one from history). She speaks about her most recent joy — encouraging people in their "final third of love" to find joy, jubilation, and a renewed sense of purpose."
Find Shirley Hershey Showalter online at www.shirleyshowalter.com.
To learn more about Threshold Choirs, visit www.thresholdchoir.org.
At a Mennonite conference I heard someone say, "Mennonites try to take monasticism into the family." — Shirley Hershey Showalter
Today’s episode is part two of a two-part interview. Click here to listen to part one.
Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
Shirley Hershey Showalter, Blush: A Mennonite Girl Meets a Glittering World
Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation
Menno Simon, The Complete Writings
Michael Sattler, The Legacy of Michael Sattler
Parker J. Palmer, On the Brink of Everything
Judith Valente, How to Live: What the Rule of Saint Benedict Teaches Us About Happiness, Meaning and Community
John O'Donohue, Walking in Wonder
Susan Cain, Quiet
Dacher Keltner, The Power Paradox
Willa Cather, Death Comes for the Archbishop
Willa Cather, The Song of the Lark
Willa Cather, O Pioneers!
Marc Freedman, How to Live Forever
Isabel Allende, The Sum of Our Days: A Memoir
Episode 51: Simplicity and Silence: A Conversation with Shirley Hershey Showalter (Part Two)
Hosted by: Carl McColman
Guest: Shirley Hershey Showalter
With: Cassidy Hall, Kevin Johnson
Date Recorded: January 28, 2019
Shirley Hershey Showalter: Simplicity and Silence, Part One (Episode 50)
Feb 06, 2019
What is the relationship between silence and simplicity? Silence and peace? Or, for that matter, how does silence relate to the importance of our voice — as human beings in general, but especially for writers or for people whose voices have traditionally bee marginalized, such as women or those who live in traditional rural settings?
These are some of the questions we explore with Shirley Hershey Showalter, the author of Blush: A Mennonite Girl Meets a Glittering World
Jesus giving his life actually is a form of helping us to find peace within ourselves, and peace with the world, and peace with all other humans and creatures in the world. — Shirley Hershey Showalter
She grew up "a barefoot girl" on a Mennonite farm near Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where her ancestors tilled the soil for generations. Speaking of her childhood, she describes her earliest encounters with silence as embedded in the experience of the vast spaciousness of the farm. Her memoir explored the tension she experienced "in the silence of her own heart" between the traditional culture of the Mennonites and her desire to discover her own voice as a teenager and young woman in the 1960s — ultimately choosing to embrace her Mennonite identity, but very much on her own terms.
I don't dress differently from other people today, but I hope that I am nonconformed to the world — that I am able to withstand the temptations of the violence of the world — of frivolity, and noise. Those are the things that I try to extract from the teachings about plainness that I grew up with. — Shirley Hershey Showalter
After being the first in her family to attend college, she joined the faculty of Goshen College, a Mennonite college in Indiana, eventually serving as that institution’s first woman president.
Shirley Hershey Showalter in Glendalough, Ireland
From there she became an executive with the Fetzer Institute. She now is engaged in what she calls her “encore vocation” of writing and helping others to celebrate what she calls jubilación — the art of aging joyfully.
Our conversation explored not only how silence informed both her faith and the simple joy of growing up on a traditional farm, but also how the "plain" culture of Anabaptist Christianity gave her an appreciation both of the beauty of silence and the power of words. She reflects on how the "plain" culture of the Mennonites — an effort to follow Christ by being nonconformed to the world — not only meant for her embracing the traditional Anabaptist commitment to peace, but also avoiding the noise of the world in which we live.
This is part one of a two part episode — to listen to part two, click here.
Find Shirley Hershey Showalter online at www.shirleyshowalter.com.
When peace is associated with silence at the center, then one becomes aware of the many people who don't have the luxury of peace, or the luxury of silence. — Shirley Hershey Showalter
Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
Shirley Hershey Showalter, Blush: A Mennonite Girl Meets a Glittering World
Martin Luther King Jr., Strength to Love
Gerard Manley Hopkins, Poems and Prose
Episode 50: Simplicity and Silence: A Conversation with Shirley Hershey Showalter (Part One)
Hosted by: Carl McColman
Guest: Shirley Hershey Showalter
With: Cassidy Hall, Kevin Johnson
Date Recorded: January 28, 2019
Celebrating Mary Oliver (Episode 49)
Jan 27, 2019
"Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?" asks Mary Oliver in her poem "The Summer Day." On January 17, 2019, her many fans — including the co-hosts of this podcast — discovered just how real this question was, as we reeled from the news of Oliver's death at the age of 83.
Even before the podcast was launched in late 2017, Mary Oliver was on our dream list of persons we would like to interview. The word on the street was that she rarely gave interviews, but we remained optimistic, periodically sending her requests in the hope that one day she would say yes.
Even as recently as our 2018 End of Year Episode, we confessed that Oliver was the one person we most wanted to interview. Less than three weeks after that episode was released, Oliver passed away due to lymphoma.
Well — we may not have fulfilled our dream of interviewing Mary Oliver, but we did the next best thing: in today's episode we reflect together on our shared love for this most popular of contemporary poets — from Cassidy, who has loved Oliver's work for years, to Carl, who began reading Oliver because of Cassidy's and Kevin's love for her work.
While poetry has become an increasingly important theme of this podcast, we remain devoted primarily to a conversation about silence, so naturally this episode includes some thoughts on the most mysterious silence of all: the silence of death.
The poems we mention on this episode include:
"The Summer Day" from House of Light
"Wild Geese" from Dream Work
"Moments" from Felicity
"What I Said at Her Service" from Thirst
"Whistling Swans" from Felicity
"Gethsemane" from Thirst
"One or Two Things" from Dream Work
"The Fourth Sign of the Zodiac" from Blue Horses
"In Blackwater Woods" from American Primitive
Among the many books we love by Mary Oliver:
Mary Oliver, No Voyage and Other Poems
Mary Oliver, The River Styx, Ohio, and Other Poems
Mary Oliver, The Night Traveler
Mary Oliver, Twelve Moons
Mary Oliver, American Primitive
Mary Oliver, Dream Work
Mary Oliver, House of Light
Mary Oliver, A Poetry Handbook
Mary Oliver, White Pine: Poems and Prose Poems
Mary Oliver, Blue Pastures
Mary Oliver, West Wind: Poems and Prose Poems
Mary Oliver, Rules for the Dance: A Handbook for Writing and Reading Metrical Verse
Mary Oliver, Winter Hours: Prose, Prose Poems, and Poems
Mary Oliver, The Leaf and the Cloud
Mary Oliver, What Do We Know: Poems and Prose Poems
Mary Oliver, Owls and Other Fantasies: Poems and Essays
Mary Oliver, Blue Iris: Poems and Essays
Mary Oliver, Long Life: Essays and Other Writings
Mary Oliver, Why I Wake Early: New Poems
Mary Oliver, At Blackwater Pond: Mary Oliver Reads Mary Oliver
Mary Oliver, Thirst
Mary Oliver, Our World with photographs by Molly Malone Cook
Mary Oliver, Red Bird
Mary Oliver, The Truro Bear and Other Adventures: Poems and Essays
Mary Oliver, Evidence
Mary Oliver, Swan: Poems and Prose Poems
Mary Oliver, A Thousand Mornings: Poems
Mary Oliver, Dog Songs
Mary Oliver, Blue Horses
Mary Oliver, Felicity
Mary Oliver, Upstream: Selected Essays
Mary Oliver, Devotions: The Selected Poems
Kevin also mentioned the Buddhist poet Jane Hirshfield, author of Nine Gates: Entering the MInd of Poetry.
Episode 49: Celebrating the Life and Poetry of Mary Oliver
Hosted by: Cassidy Hall
With: Carl McColman, Kevin Johnson
Date Recorded: January 21, 2019
Andō: Silence in the Forest, Part Two (Episode 48)
Jan 23, 2019
Today's episode is part two of a two-part interview. Click here to listen to part one.
"All words begin as silence," proclaims Andō on her Patreon page. Indeed, those five words provide an auspicious introduction to this enigmatic yet joyful contemplative Zen poet.
As a lay monastic, Andō has spent many years living a monastic life in the forest. In her own words, “Spending five years living quietly in the forest, I learnt the Zen of forest, mountain and river, studied the poetry of the wind.”
Above: Cassidy Hall, Andō. Below: Kevin Johnson, Carl McColman.
She says “I'm passionate about the poetry of Zen, Ch’an and Daoist traditions, in particular, haiku, monoku, renku, free verse and fragments.” She is writing a haiku memoir and will publish her first two poetry collections this year. Active on social media and through her own Patreon page, she shares her poetry which is luminous with both silence and light.
Originally from England, she now makes her home in Portugal, where she spoke to us via Skype.
Our deeply contemplative conversation continues with more insight into Andō's singular spiritual journey, how illness impacted her life, her deep love for the Christian mystical classic The Cloud of Unknowing, and much more.
"The truest poetry is where we're not the poet, we're the vehicle for the poetry." — Andō
She is the creator of the Small Silences poetry course: "a contemplative poetry course for those seeking to make space for silence and poetry in their lives. Small silences are contemplative moments of awareness, attention, insight and clarity, recorded as brief poems." To learn more or to register for this course, click here: www.ando.life/smallsilencescourse01
To support Andō via Patreon, click here: www.patreon.com/silentiumstudio
Andō suggested that we might list information about her Zen masters here, which we are happy to do:
My first Zen Master, Daizan, under whom I trained as a meditation and mindfulness teacher, and was lay ordained into the Rinzai Zen tradition and lineage of Shinzan Miyamae Rōshi. Julian Daizan Skinner Rōshi's website is www.zenways.org. Julian Daizan Skinner is the author of Practical Zen: Meditation and Beyond and Practical Zen for Health, Wealth and Mindfulness.
My second Zen Master, Sokuzan, under whom I was lay ordained into the Sōtō Zen tradition and lineage of Kobun Chino Rōshi and Shunryu Suzuki Rōshi. Sokuzan's website is www.sokukoji.org. Sokuzan is the author of A Meditation Primer.
Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
Paul Reps, Zen Flesh Zen Bones: A Collection of Zen and Pre-Zen Writings
Anonymous, The Cloud of Unknowing
Julian of Norwich, The Showings of Julian of Norwich
Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation
Mary Oliver, Devotions: The Selected Poems
Basho, The Complete Haiku
Dogen, The Essential Dogen: Writings of the Great Zen Master
Yang Wan-li, Heaven my Blanket: Earth my Pillow: Poems from Sung Dynasty China
Episode 48: Andō: Silence in the Forest, Part 2
Hosted by: Carl McColman
Guest: Andō
With: Cassidy Hall, Kevin Johnson
Date Recorded: December 17, 2018
Andō: Silence in the Forest, Part 1 (Episode 47)
Jan 14, 2019
"All words begin as silence," proclaims Andō on her Patreon page. Indeed, those five words provide an auspicious introduction to this enigmatic yet joyful contemplative Zen poet.
As a lay monastic, Andō has spent many years living a monastic life in the forest. In her own words, “Spending five years living quietly in the forest, I learnt the Zen of forest, mountain and river, studied the poetry of the wind.”
Above: Cassidy Hall, Andō. Below: Kevin Johnson, Carl McColman.
She says “I'm passionate about the poetry of Zen, Ch’an and Daoist traditions, in particular, haiku, monoku, renku, free verse and fragments.” She is writing a haiku memoir and will publish her first two poetry collections this year. Active on social media and through her own Patreon page, she shares her poetry which is luminous with both silence and light.
Originally from England, she now makes her home in Portugal, where she spoke to us via Skype.
Our deeply contemplative conversation explores her relationship with Zen, with poetry, how a long illness became her greatest teacher, and how the forest brought her both healing and a deeper initiation into the mysteries of silence. She tells of studying with masters like Mooji and Ganga Mira, and how she discovered her vocation as a poet and spiritual companion, through silence.
"The truest poetry is where we're not the poet, we're the vehicle for the poetry." — Andō
She is the creator of the Small Silences poetry course: "a contemplative poetry course for those seeking to make space for silence and poetry in their lives. Small silences are contemplative moments of awareness, attention, insight and clarity, recorded as brief poems." To learn more or to register for this course, click here: www.silentiumstudio.com/smallsilencescourse01
To support Andō via Patreon, click here: www.patreon.com/silentiumstudio
"Quit trying. Quit trying not to try. Quit quitting." — Zen saying
This is part one of a two part interview. Part Two will be released the week of January 21, 2019.
Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
Paul Reps, Zen Flesh Zen Bones: A Collection of Zen and Pre-Zen Writings
James Finley, The Contemplative Heart
Rumi, The Essential Rumi
Evagrius Ponticus, The Praktikos & Chapters on Prayer
Jane Hirshfield, Nine Gates
Thomas Merton, The Intimate Merton: His Life From His Journals
Ramana Maharshi, Be As You Are
Bankei, Unborn: The Life and Teachings of Zen Master Bankei, 1622-1693
Mooji, Vaster Than Sky, Greater Than Space: What You Are Before You Became
H.W.L. Poonja, This: Poetry and Prose of Dancing Emptiness
Elias Marechal, Tears of An Innocent God
Paul Quenon, In Praise of the Useless Life: A Monk’s Memoir
Episode 47: Andō: Silence in the Forest, Part 1
Hosted by: Carl McColman
Guest: Andō
With: Cassidy Hall, Kevin Johnson
Date Recorded: December 17, 2018
Richard Rohr in Conversation with Cassidy Hall (Episode 46)
Jan 07, 2019
Richard Rohr sat down with Cassidy Hall in Chicago last month, at the conference “‘Disappear from View’? Thomas Merton, Fifty Years Later and Beyond” which commemorated the fiftieth anniversary of Merton’s death.
If I had to choose between music and silence, I'd always choose silence. — Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM
In this informal chat, Fr. Richard and Cassidy reflect on why Merton remains so important a half century after his passing, along with insights into Fr. Richard's sense of hope in our time (spoiler alert: he's impressed with young people today), his thoughts on how Christianity in America has (and has not) been faithful to the teachings of Jesus over the past few decades, thoughts about his own work and legacy, and much more!
There's so much creativity in the way we love people and the way we serve people. — Cassidy Hall
Listeners of this podcast will recall that we first spoke with Fr. Richard Rohr last spring — that conversation was released as Episode 19.
We're all victims of our own culture. — Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM
This is a field recording (made in the lobby of Fr. Richard's hotel!) and so there's plenty of background ambient noise — ironic, we know, for a podcast about silence! But we hope that listeners will appreciate this wonderful moment when Fr. Richard spoke with Cassidy in a truly relaxed and candid way.
Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
Richard Rohr, Just This
Richard Rohr, The Universal Christ
Richare Rohr, What Do We Do About the Bible?
Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation
Meister Eckhart, Selected Writings
Peter Enns, The Sin of Certainty
Augustine, The Confessions of Saint Augustine
Thomas Keating, Open Mind, Open Heart: The Contemplative Dimension of the Gospel
Paul Quenon, In Praise of the Useless Life: A Monk’s Memoir
Bono (of U2), Bono in Conversation with Michka Assayas
Henri Nouwen, Reaching Out
Some of Richard Rohr’s other books include:
Richard Rohr, Essential Teachings on Love
Richard Rohr with Mike Morrell, The Divine Dance: The Trinity and Your Transformation
Richard Rohr, Falling Upward
Richard Rohr, The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See
Richard Rohr, Immortal Diamond
Richard Rohr, Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer
Richard Rohr, Things Hidden: Scripture as Spirituality
Richard Rohr, Breathing Under Water: Spirituality and the Twelve Steps
Richard Rohr, What the Mystics Know: Seven Pathways to Your Deeper Self
Richard Rohr, Silent Compassion: Finding God in Contemplation
Richard Rohr and Andreas Ebert, The Enneagram: A Christian Perspective
Episode 46: Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM in Conversation with Cassidy Hall in Chicago
Hosted by: Cassidy Hall
Guest: Father Richard Rohr, OFM
Date Recorded: December 7, 2018
Auld Lang Silence (Episode 45)
Dec 31, 2018
For our final episode of 2018 — the first full year of our podcast, which debuted on December 6, 2017 — the three co-hosts of Encountering Silence sat down for a brief chat in which we reflected on the year just past, and shared some hopes for the podcast in the year to come.
This time a year ago, we had only released four episodes and had yet to interview our first guest (who would be Patrick Shen, in episode 7). We were still trying to figure this whole podcasting thing out. Kevin had managed to get some grant money for the recording and mixing equipment, and we all split the costs of the website, the URL and the podcasting hosting fees. We were operating on a shoestring, driven by faith and our shared love for silence (and, as we were soon to discover, poetry).
This time a year ago we had no idea that we would soon be interviewing a wide array of truly interesting and insightful guests who spoke about silence from a variety of perspectives. (If you're new to the podcast, here's a partial list of the folks we've spoken to over the past year):
James Martin, SJ
Barbara A. Holmes
Richard Rohr, OFM
Kathleen Norris
Parker J. Palmer
Leah Weiss
Jim Forest
Mirabai Starr
Over the course of the year, several themes emerged, some of which we were mindful of when we began the podcast, but others which arose out of the various conversations over the year. Some of those themes included these thoughts: Silence matters; silence is an "endangered species" in our hyper-connected, entertainment-drenched world; silence is essential not only for spiritual well-being but for mental and physical wellness also; silence is essential for creativity; different kinds of people embrace and encounter silence in different ways; not all "silences" are created equal, and not all expressions of silence are good — there is such a thing as "toxic" silence; and the list could go on.
After thirteen months, all three of the co-hosts are awed and humbled and amazed at the richness of the conversation, as well as the emerging web of new friendships and connections that we see on social media, as well as in "real life," of people who are drawn to this podcast — and each other — by a shared recognition that silence matters.
So — now, where do we go from here?
Looking ahead, naturally we are eager to expand the conversation as we invite some new dialogue partners onto the podcast (and perhaps welcome a few of our previous guests back for new episodes). We are eager to explore more deeply both the social dimension of silence (how silence relates to religion, to art, to social justice, and to the problem of social and economic privilege) as well as the personal dimension of silence (how to be more silent in the middle of stress, during times of vulnerability or suffering, and in the midst of life's ordinary chaos). We believe silence makes a difference, and — except for its toxic form, which we would argue is actually a betrayal of true silence) — that difference is universally positive, yielding physical, mental and spiritual benefits. So we also want to talk more about how to spread the "good news" of silence and help others to access silence in both personal and communal ways.
It's amazing how such a quiet topic (pardon the pun) can yield such a rich and nuanced conversation. We feel like the conversation is just getting started. Please stay tuned — we value your companionship as we make this journey, deeper and deeper into the mystery of silence!
Finally, one last point to observe about both the year just ended and the year to come. As of this writing, 42 people have committed to support the podcast financially through a monthly pledge on Patreon (we've had several other donors make one-time contributions as well). All three of us find it's awkward to ask for money, but podcasting is both a time-intensive task and a form of media based on free access — anyone can listen for free (and we like it that way),
Br. Paul Quenon, OCSO: Silence in Chicago (Episode 44)
Dec 20, 2018
We are so pleased to welcome Trappist monk and poet Br. Paul Quenon, OCSO, back to Encountering Silence. A while back, Cassidy Hall interviewed brother Paul at his home, Gethsemani Abbey in Kentucky (you can listen to that episode by clicking here).
Br. Paul, out shopping with Cassidy
She ran into Br. Paul again recently while visiting Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, to participate in the conference "'Disappear from View'? Thomas Merton, Fifty Years Later and Beyond" which commemorated the fiftieth anniversary of Merton's death in Bangkok in 1968.
If you can breathe comfortably with yourself, you're going to be breathing more comfortably with other people. If you're not comfortable with yourself, how are you going to be comfortable with other people? — Brother Paul Quenon, OCSO
Judith Valente interviews Br. Paul Quenon, OCSO at the CTU Conference
They sat down for another chance to chat, and here is the recording of that conversation.
Some of the resources and authors mentioned in this episode:
Paul Quenon, In Praise of the Useless Life: A Monk’s Memoir
Paul Quenon, Unquiet Vigil: New and Selected Poems
Paul Quenon, Bells of the Hours
Paul Quenon, Afternoons with Emily
Paul Quenon, Monkswear
Paul Quenon, Laughter: My Purgatory
Paul Quenon, Terrors of Paradise
Paul Quenon with Judith Valente and Michael Bever, The Art of Pausing
Episode 32: Silence in Chicago: A Conversation with Paul Quenon, OCSO
Hosted by: Cassidy Hall
Introduced by: Kevin Johnson
Guest: Paul Quenon, OCSO
Date Recorded: December 7, 2018
Jacqueline Bussie: Silence and Love without Limits (Episode 43)
Dec 14, 2018
Dr. Jacqueline Bussie. Photo by Rachel Kabukala
Sometimes we do not encounter silence so much as silence encounters us — whether we want it to or not. Today we have a conversation with Dr. Jacqueline Bussie, author of Love Without Limits: Jesus' Radical Vision for Love with No Exceptions.
Dr. Bussie teaches religion, theology, and interfaith studies classes at Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota, where she also serves as the Director of the Forum on Faith and Life.
"There is something that I think we have to be more authentic about within our faith traditions... and that is the silence of God and the way that is not always pretty." — Dr. Jacqueline Bussie
A book about love may not sound very radical — but when the book's original publisher wanted to edit or remove sections it deemed too controversial, Jacqueline faced a dilemma: either accept the publisher's demands, or lose the publication contract. It was an experience of having her voiced silenced, all because she wanted to affirm the radical nature of true Christian love — a love with no boundaries and no exceptions. Thankfully, a new publisher was quickly found willing to take over the task of publishing the book — without silencing Jacqueline's voice or her commitment to love without limits. But she received a crash course in how vulnerable we all are, to being silenced by those who wield greater power.
"Writing is prayer." — Dr. Jacqueline Bussie
We recorded this episode of the podcast while Jacqueline was attending the Parlaiment of World Religions in Toronto, where she was one of the presenters. But she made time in her schedule to Skype with the Encountering Silence team, not only to discuss the remarkable story of her encounter with a silence that threatened to silence her, but she also explores more how silence has been part of her story in more life-affirming ways as well.
Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
Jacqueline Bussie, Love Without Limits: Jesus' Radical Vision for Love with No Exceptions
Jacqueline Bussie, Outlaw Christian: Finding Authentic Faith by Breaking the 'Rules'
Jacqueline Bussie, The Laughter of the Oppressed: Ethical and Theological Resistance in Wiesel, Morrison, and Endo
Episode 43: Silence and Love without Limits: A Conversation with Jacqueline Bussie
Hosted by: Kevin Johnson
With: Cassidy Hall, Carl McColman
Guest: Dr. Jacqueline Bussie
Date Recorded: November 5, 2018
Appreciating healthy silence at a writer's retreat in Wyoming
Rebecca Bratten Weiss: Silence, Feminism, and Literature (Episode 42)
Dec 06, 2018
This week's episode marks the one-year anniversary of Encountering Silence! Our pilot episode was released a year ago today.
It seems appropriate, therefore, that on this first-year anniversary, we release an episode that marks a new "first" for us. Not only is it the first time we've interviewed Catholic author, philosopher and feminist Rebecca Bratten Weiss, but also the first time we've recorded an episode in front of a live audience.
This was recorded on Sunday, November 11, 2018 at Terra Incognita, a literary conference and workshop sponsored by the Convivium Journal, which Rebecca Bratten Weiss edits. Kevin and Cassidy both attended the conference and took the opportunity to interview Rebecca — and perform what we hope will the first of many, many Encountering Silence live events.
We decided, as part of our one-year observance, to release this episode with only very light editing — for two reasons. First, we felt that the first twelve minutes, where Cassidy and Kevin talk about the podcast and introduce themselves and the podcast to the audience, was worth keeping for the sake of new (newer) listeners who might enjoy hearing how we introduce ourselves.
But our other reason for leaving this episode (mostly) unedited was simply that we felt it would be a fun way to share with our listening circle, just what it feels like to be with us as we record.
We did edit out a few obvious bloopers. But for the most part, you get the feel of one of our recording sessions, from getting interrupted by a cellphone, to our moment of silence before we "officially" begin recording.
We hope you enjoy it!
If you set forth on a voyage across the ocean, silence is a little bit like that, in that you will meet many many things, as Odysseus did on his voyages: strange monsters, dragons, friends, seducers... As a writer, one has to go into that realm because so much that we have experienced in our lives is stored there in our memory and we then find that the things that we remember are still alive there, very very alive, moving around like little strange sea creatures, connecting with each other, perhaps breeding and producing new creatures that now reside in your imagination. — Rebecca Bratten Weiss
But of course, the real treat in this episode is our chance to chat with Rebecca Bratten Weiss. Novelist, poet, editor, professor of English and philosophy, co-founder of the New Pro-Life Movement, and self described "Christian rebel," she is the manager of the Catholic Channel on Patheos, where she also maintains her blog, Suspended in Her Jar. In her blog bio she says "I'm interested in eco-growing and sustainable economies, a theology of the real female body, social justice, and poking at the patriarchy. I write poems about insects and other things that some find disgusting, and novels that are likely to be banned in certain quarters."
I'm a Catholic woman — I've been silenced my entire life. I lived in religious semi-community situations, so it was constant silencing, and it's knowing what you can't say, and a long list of things you can't say, and the words you can't use, especially as a woman; and I've taught in Catholic academia, and that meant knowing what you can't say — but then I said some things anyway! — Rebecca Bratten Weiss
Her books include Catholic Philosopher Chick Makes Her Debut and Catholic Philosopher Chick Comes on Strong (both co-authored with Regina Doman), as well as a chapbook of poems, Palaces of Dust. Another chapbook, Mudwoman, co-authored by Joanna Penn Cooper, has recently been released.
Rebecca Bratten Weiss muses on how silence is a "strange land," a place where writers access the wonders and terrors of their imagination; she reflects on how silence has been a gift for her in relation to interacting with her horse, the relationship between silence, intimacy, writing, and anxiety; and the story of how she experienced toxic silence, particularly in Catholic settings.
David Cole: Celtic Mysticism and Silence (Episode 41)
Nov 28, 2018
David Cole and Luna
How does silence impact the rhythms of our lives — including the rhythm of prayer? How can we invite silence into our lives, in both structured and unstructured ways?
Joining us to explore questions like these — from the New Forest of England — is the award-winning author, teacher and spiritual guide David Cole.
Intentional silences is different to just finding yourself not saying anything, there's a focus behind that, that intention that you're deliberately being with God in that moment. — David Cole
David’s books include: The Mystic Path of Meditation: Beginning a Christ-Centered Journey, Celtic Prayers and Practices: An Inner Journey and Forty Days with the Celtic Saints: Devotional Readings for a Time of Preparation. His most recent books are Celtic Advent: 40 Days of Devotions to Christmas and Celtic Lent: 40 Days of Devotions to Easter.
David is the founder of Waymark Ministries which creates opportunities for people to engage with the wisdom teachings of Christ and Christianity for our time, with a particular emphasis on Celtic spirituality and Christian mysticism. He is also Deputy Guardian for the Community of Aidan and Hilda, a dispersed, ecumenical Christian intentional community which draws its inspiration from the lives of the Celtic saints.
David and Luna in the New Forest
In this wide-ranging conversation, David shares how Celtic spirituality and an early mystical experience of Christ shaped his spiritual identity, and how the new monastic movement, the experience of working with a soul friend (anam chara), and long walks in the New Forest with Luna, his border collie companion, have all been gateways for his own encounter with silence.
On Lindisfarne, particularly during the summer, they can have eight to ten thousand people a day coming on to the island to visit, it gets hugely busy. And it's fascinating speaking to some of these travelers and visitors who have no spiritual context, but will tell you that they can feel something different in this place, they will say there's something in this place that feels different. And obviously, for myself, that's the Divine Presence... There is something there that even those who don't believe can feel. — David Cole
To learn more about David Cole's books and ministry, visit www.waymarkministries.com. To learn more about the Community of Aidan and Hilda, visit www.aidanandhilda.org.uk.
Some of the authors and resources mentioned in this episode:
David Cole, The Mystic Path of Meditation: Beginning a Christ-Centered Journey
David Cole, Celtic Prayers and Practices: An Inner Journey
David Cole, Forty Days with the Celtic Saints: Devotional Readings for a Time of Preparation
David Cole, Celtic Advent: 40 Days of Devotions to Christmas
David Cole, Celtic Lent: 40 Days of Devotions to Easter
J. R. R. Tolkien, The Hobbit
J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings
C. S. Lewis, The Signature Classics
C. S. Lewis, The Chronicles of Narnia
Saint Benedict, The Rule of Saint Benedict
The Northumbria Community, Celtic Daily Prayer
The Book of Kells
Ray Simpson, Exploring Celtic Spirituality
Justin Welby, Dethroning Mammon: Making Money Serve Grace
Richard Rohr, The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See
Meister Eckhart, Selected Writings
Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation
John O'Donohue, Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom
John O'Donohue, Eternal Echoes: Celtic Reflections on Our Yearning to Belong
John O'Donohue, Benedictus (published in the USA as To Bless the Space Between Us)
Chris Walton, ed., Words of Praise (includes David's poem "Standing in the Reign, Waiting for the Son")
John of the Cross, The Dark Night of the Soul
Sister Benedicta Ward SLG, The Spirituality of Saint Cuthbert
Episode 41: Celtic Mysticism and Silence: A Conversation with David Cole
Hosted by: Carl McColman
With: Kevin Johnson, Cassidy Hall
Guest: David Cole
Christine Valters Paintner: Silence, Art, and Contemplation (Episode 40)
Nov 13, 2018
Christine Valters Paintner — an American expatriate living in the west of Ireland — joins us on Encoutering Silence to explore the intersections of silence, spirituality, contemplation, creativity, and living as a monk in the real world.
Author, poet, spiritual director, and Benedictine Oblate Christine Valters Paintner serves as the online Abbess at www.AbbeyoftheArts.com, a virtual monastery without walls. She is the author of twelve books on spirituality, contemplative practice, and creative expression, including: The Artist’s Rule, The Eyes of the Heart, The Wisdom of the Body, and The Soul’s Slow Ripening. Next year Paraclete Press will publish her collection of poetry, Dreaming of Stones.
I started to realize how photography has a lot of violence in its language — so there's capturing, shooting, taking... the way that we interact with photography is very much about seizing the movement in this kind of violent way. What if when we were with our camera, we looked at it as receiving a gift, rather than taking something? — Christine Valters Paintner
Drawing connections between her life experience as an introvert and her early spiritual formation shaped by Jesuit education and the wisdom of St. Benedict and St. Hildegard of Bingen, Christine shares how a silent retreat inspired her to find the silent, contemplative dimension of artistry, poetry, movement — as well as winter time as a powerful season for contemplative rest and unknowing which is its own contribution to the creative process.
I find that creative work is a lot about just giving ourselves permission to make mistakes, and to have fun, and to do things that we maybe haven't done since we were a child, and there is a lot of freedom that comes with that. — Christine Valters Paintner
She reflects on how the experience of grieving, living with an autoimmune illness, and embracing our embodied selves, are some of the many portals through which the mystery of contemplative silence has invited her — and can invite all of us — into stillness and unknowing, and into finding ourselves in the present moment.
Christine offers a special treat at the end of our conversation — she reads a never-before-published poem of hers, "Saint Francis and the Grasshopper."
I believe in the revolutionary power of stillness and spaciousness, and of practicing presence to life's unfolding. I believe this commitment can change the world. — Christine Valters Paintner
Some of the authors and resources mentioned in this episode:
Christine Valters Paintner, The Artist’s Rule: Nurturing Your Creative Soul with Monastic Wisdom;
Christine Valters Paintner, The Eyes of the Heart: Photography as a Christian Contemplative Practice;
Christine Valters Paintner, The Wisdom of the Body: A Contemplative Journey to Wholeness for Women;
Christine Valters Paintner, The Soul’s Slow Ripening: 12 Celtic Practices for Seeking the Sacred.
Christine Valters Paintner, Dreaming of Stones: Poems
Christine Valters Paintner, Lectio Divina: The Sacred Art
Saint Benedict, The Rule of Saint Benedict
Saint Hildegard of Bingen, Selected Writings
Mary C. Earle, Beginning Again: Benedictine Wisdom for Living with Illness
Mary C. Earle, Days of Grace: Meditations and Practices for Living with Illness
Mary C. Earle, Broken Body, Healing Spirit: Lectio Divina and Living with Illness
Reginald Ray, Touching Enlightenment: Finding Realization in the Body
Julia Cameron, The Artist's Way: A Spiritual Path to Higher Creativity
The Desert Mothers and Fathers, Early Christian Wisdom Sayings
Denise Levertov, The Collected Poems
Mary Oliver, Devotions: The Selected Poems
David Whyte, River Flow: New and Selected Poems
Billy Collins, Aimless Love: New and Selected Poems
Thomas Merton, Collected Poems of Thomas Merton
Saint Francis of Assisi, In His Own Words: The Essential Writings
When I do spend that time in silence and solitude,
Judith Valente: Silence, St. Benedict, and Writing (Episode 39)
Nov 06, 2018
Judith Valente is a poet, a journalist, a Benedictine oblate, and the author of books including Atchison Blue: A Search for Silence, a Spiritual Home, and a Living Faith and How to Live: What the Rule of Saint Benedict Teaches Us About Happiness, Meaning and Community. Her books of poetry include Discovering Moons and The Art of Pausing: Meditations for the Overworked and Overwhelmed which she co-authored with Br. Paul Quenon OCSO and Michael Bever.
Silence has two sides to it... silence could be very burdensome... so silence also has to be balanced with community. Too much silence can be deafening, it can be stifling to a soul. — Judith Valente
Judith shares how a poetry workshop at a monastery led her to a meaningful encounter with silence at midlife — how a room "saturated with silence" introduced her to a maxim from St. Benedict: "At all times, cultivate silence" — thus inviting her to seek rest in solitude and stillness as a response to her busy (and exhausting) life.
All poems begin in silence, and the poems themselves are a part of the overall silence that we experience. — Judith Valente
She talks about her ancestral ties to Monte Cassino (where St. Benedict founded his last monastery), and how Benedictine spirituality helped to inspire her and her husband to become involved in organic farming. She goes on to reflect how nature, beauty, and poetry are all linked to her spiritual life. She tells some chaarming stories about her fellow poet, the Trappist monk Br. Paul Quenon (who Cassidy Hall interviewed for our episode 32), and about the bullfrogs and cicadas who "sing" to her in the silence of a cabin on her farm, where she often goes to write.
Our conversation meanders over the problems associated with social media, poets that Judith loves and a special reading of her poems, "Discovering Moons" and "Lunar Eclipse."
Contemplation is a big fat word for gratitude. — Br. Paul Quenon, OCSO
Some of the authors and resources mentioned in this episode:
Judith Valente, How to Live: What the Rule of Saint Benedict Teaches Us About Happiness, Meaning and Community
Judith Valente, Atchison Blue: A Search for Silence, a Spiritual Home, and a Living Faith
Judith Valente, Discovering Moons
Judith Valente, Br. Paul Quenon, and Michael Bever, The Art of Pausing: Meditations for the Overworked and Overwhelmed
Judith Valente and Charles Reynard, Twenty Poems to Nourish Your Soul
Saint Benedict, The Rule of Saint Benedict
Saint Ignatius of Loyola, Personal Writings
Wendell Berry, What I Stand On: The Collected Essays
Wendell Berry, The Selected Poems
Paul Quenon, In Praise of the Useless Life: A Monk’s Memoir
Paul Quenon, Unquiet Vigil: New and Selected Poems
Sara Maitland, A Book of Silence
Judith Valente, Inventing an Alphabet
Mary Oliver, Devotions: The Selected Poems
Marie Howe, What the Living Do
Marie Howe, The Kingdom of Ordinary Time: Poems
Poetry is for everyone... Poetry is truly a 'soul friend.' Poems will come back to us when we need to hear their message. They will come back to us at different points in our lives, poems that we've read, poems that we've heard; they are our soul friends. — Judith Valente
Episode 39: Silence, St. Benedict and Writing: A Conversation with Judith Valente
Hosted by: Kevin Johnson
With: Cassidy Hall, Carl McColman
Guest: Judith Valente
Date Recorded: October 15, 2018
Helen Lees: Silence, Politics, and Education (Episode 38)
Oct 30, 2018
British writer and educator Dr. Helen E. Lees is an independent scholar, journalist and artist whose work explores topics such as alternative education, silence and sexuality. She is an associate research fellow at York St John University in England. Her books include Education Without Schools: Discovering Alternatives and Silence in Schools. Dr. Lees appears in the movie In Pursuit of Silence and a transcript of her interview appears in the book Notes on Silence.
Dr. Helen Lees. Screenshot from the film "In Pursuit of Silence." Used by permission.
I’m not the first person and I won’t be the last person that comes to the conclusion that silence is equated with God, there is no difference. But the wonderful thing, the best thing of all about silence in this regard is it’s secular. We don’t need to call it this name or that name or locate it in a particular tradition or a particular culture. It doesn’t make you have to join something. — Dr. Helen E. Lees
Dr. Lees speaks of discovering silence as a child, and particularly as a young adult when first exploring the spiritual practice of meditation. In this interview she explores the intersection between silence, authenticity, grace, and creative expression. From learning to cherish silence as a young artist, to exploring the tension between the hunger for silence and the demands of a busy career, to musing on how silence comes to us in graced and graceful ways, to how silence continues to shape her work as a writer and an artist, Dr. Lees invites us into a profoundly meaningful exploration of how beautiful and necessary silence is for us all.
I'm not interested in silence being affiliated with any particular religious path, because for me it's totally devoid of any need of characterization like that. — Dr. Helen E. Lees
Silence returns us to what is real. — Dr. Helen E. Lees
Some of the resources and authors mentioned in this episode:
Helen E. Lees, Education Without Schools: Discovering Alternatives
Helen E. Lees, Silence in Schools
Patrick Shen (dir.), In Pursuit of Silence
Cassidy Hall and Patrick Shen, Notes on Silence
bell hooks, All About Love: New Visions
Pythagoras, Pythagoras: His Life and Teachings
Sarada Devi, The Gospel of the Holy Mother
Ramakrishna, The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna
Episode 38: Silence, Politics and Education: A Conversation with Helen E. Lees
Hosted by: Carl McColman
With: Cassidy Hall, Kevin Johnson
Guest: Dr. Helen E. Lees
Date Recorded: October 1, 2018
Allison M. Sullivan: Silence, Yoga, and Faith (Episode 37)
Oct 23, 2018
Allison M. Sullivan is a mom, wife, yoga teacher, author, podcaster, and spiritual companion. She is the author of Rock Paper Scissors: God's Mighty Power, Jesus's Covering Forgiveness, and the Snipping Refinement of the Holy Spirit. She is the host of the Sinner Saint Sister podcast. She and her family reside in Bryan, Texas, where she engages in ministry with college women.
We first connected with Allison through the Sick Pilgrim writers' collective online, where we all grew admire her honesty, vulnerability, and faith. Allison and Cassidy made a pact to interview each other on their respective podcasts — so here the conversation begins!
I have this evolving definition of what silence is... before, all silence meant to me was just an absence of noise, you know, just kind of this literal silence — but now, as I seek it out as a discipline, whether it's in an effort to know myself, or create, or get needed time as an introvert — it's more about a search — and that can happen within noise, of course, but it's a searching posture of my heart, that asks the question, "What do you have for me here?" so there's an asking and receiving, or a searching and a finding, of silence. — Allison M. Sullivan
Allison shares her first discovery of silence (in the context of growing up with two "boisterous" parents) while encountering solitude in a swimming pool. She muses on the challenge of cultivating silence in the midst of a large family (routine and a prayer closet have been lifesavers), and silence has been integral to her experience as a Christian yoga instructor.
Allison shares how she has experienced silence both as a safe space and as a shield for avoidance, and shares how a bizarre moment while getting a root canal inspired her to self-care — and to explore her vocation as a writer. She approaches silence in terms like lingering and sabbath — and laments how such ways of being in time are so absent in so much of our culture.
I think it's important to distinguish when silence can become avoidance — whether that's avoiding a certain type of person, or that's avoiding a certain type of emotion, silence can be avoidance. — Allison M. Sullivan
Some of the resources and authors mentioned in this episode:
Allison M. Sullivan, Rock Paper Scissors: God's Mighty Power, Jesus's Covering Forgiveness, and the Snipping Refinement of the Holy Spirit
Julia Cameron, The Right to Write
Cassidy Hall and Patrick Shen, Notes on Silence
Gregorian Chant, Lost in Meditation
Allison M. Sullivan, The Sinner Saint Sister Podcast
Thomas Merton, Day of a Stranger
At the end of the podcast Carl speaks briefly about the trailer for Cassidy's forthcoming movie, Day of a Stranger. Here it is:
https://youtu.be/pGbEGzy4P2M
I think about the word "linger" — our culture doesn't allow for that, does it? We are constantly trying to achieve more, process more information, cross more things off the to-do list; but I think that linger is so connected to love. We cannot linger over that which we do not love, we cannot love that which we do not linger over. And when it comes to our bodies and maybe this is sensitive with women in particular, but I don't know that we love our bodies and so there's that desire to dissasociate. My desire with yoga and this full-bodied experience of life is to bring it all back into one being in a loving way, in a way that lingers and loves. — Allison M. Sullivan
Episode 37: Silence, Yoga and Faith: A Conversation with Allison M. Sullivan
Hosted by: Carl McColman
With: Cassidy Hall, Kevin Johnson
Guest: Allison M. Sullivan
Date Recorded: September 24, 2018
Kathleen Norris, Part Two: Silence, Poetry, and Acedia (Episode 36)
Oct 15, 2018
In this episode we conclude our interview with poet and essayist Kathleen Norris. In part one of the interview, Kathleen and Cassidy explored topics such as poetry, creativity, silence (of course) and acedia — a spiritual malady that she wrote about movingly in her memoir Acedia and Me.
This is part two of a two part interview. Click here to listen to part one.
Katherine Norris on Skype with Kevin Johnson and Carl McColman.
This week the conversation continues with reflection on the value of monastic spirituality, the question of whether religion can be a force for good in today's world, how even monks can experience an overload of regulation, how toxic silence and self-censorship is a problem particularly for many women, and how a good writer moves beyond simple expression to caring for the reader.
Structuring a life around writing is as crazy as structuring a life around prayer. — Kathleen Norris
By drawing connections between poetry and prayer, or between liturgy and poetry, Kathleen Norris explores how a contemplative heart beats at the center of creativity as well as spirituality. She goes on to discuss the difficulties inherent in recording an audiobook, gives some pointers about reading her work, and offers a few thoughts on the challenge of using poetry while preaching.
At the end of the interview Carl and Kevin join Cassidy and Kathleen (via Skype), to ask a few final questions. She offers a particularly spiritual perspective on who her "silence heroes" are, and reflects on how one of the most important qualities for her as writer has been simple candor.
Liturgy itself is a poem — the daily liturgy of the monastery plus the eucharist, the mass, it really functions like a poem during the day — you know you're going to be entering this realm again of the mystery and the poetry and all of that, and then you're going to go and do your chores and do whatever else you're doing, but there is a certain poetic quality to it, that is really refreshing, and I think that's one of the big appeals to me — it was the poetry that drew me in. — Kathleen Norris
Katherine Norris and Cassidy Hall
Some of the resources and authors mentioned in this episode:
Kathleen Norris, Dakota: A Spiritual Geography
Kathleen Norris, The Cloister Walk
Kathleen Norris, Amazing Grace
Kathleen Norris, Acedia and Me
Kathleen Norris, Acedia and Me Audiobook
Kathleen Norris, The Virgin of Bennington
Kathleen Norris, Falling Off (includes "Prayer to Eve")
Tillie Olson, Silences
Tillie Olson, Tell Me a Riddle and Other Stories
John Sayles (dir.), Brother From Another Planet
John Berryman, The Dream Songs
Thomas Merton, Audio recordings on various topics
Denise Levertov, The Stream and the Sapphire
Robert Frost, The Poetry of Robert Frost
Jane Flanders, Timepiece(includes "Planting Onions")
Rumi, The Essential Rumi
Emily Dickinson, Letters
Episode 36: Silence, Poetry and Acedia: A Conversation with Kathleen Norris (Part Two)
Hosted by: Cassidy Hall
With: Kevin Johnson, Carl McColman
Guest: Kathleen Norris
Date Recorded: September 17, 2018
Kathleen Norris, Part One: Silence, Poetry, and Acedia (Episode 35)
Oct 09, 2018
Kathleen Norris and Cassidy Hall
A self-described "evangelist for poetry," Kathleen Norris explores the spiritual life in both intimate and historical ways, through her award-winning poetry and luminous works of literary nonfiction, including Dakota: A Spiritual Geography, The Cloister Walk, and Acedia and Me. In addition to her distinguished literary career, she is a Presbyterian layperson and a Benedictine Oblate.
"There's natural noise, like wind, that contributes to silence. It may be loud, in fact, but it's not mechanical noise, it's not human generated noise. It actually feels more like silence than not — like rain, or ocean waves, or wind in grass and trees. That has a silent quality to it." — Kathleen Norris
This is part one of a two-part interview. Click here to listen to part two.
Norris launches into her interview by recounting stories of introducing children to silence, moving on to muse about "the terror of the blank page" and how silence is not always a comfortable presence. She muses on how the structured life of a monastery has been a blessing to her both as a contemplative and as a writer; how her earliest encounters with silence were bound up with family dynamics; and how silence became her ally as a young poet in college.
"Silence sometimes shows you what you're really suffering from... just to sit there and let the silence sink in, and often that's when you discover what it is you're really worried about, what you're really suffering from, what your real concerns are, because when you're busy in the world either with activity or a lot of verbal stuff going on, you're ignoring some of those deeper things, and sitting in silence for a while, it will start to surface." — Kathleen Norris
Her conversation with Cassidy (Carl and Kevin join in later in the conversation, and will appear in part two of this interview) covers a wide range, from musing on the relationship between silence and the sounds of nature, to the ways in which silence can touch on situations like depression, vulnerability, and acedia. She muses on how noisy cities are (she spends some of her time in Honolulu) and reflects on how people in our culture have created a "coccoon of noise" that seems to arise out of an existential fear of silence.
"Acedia basically means not being able to care, even to the extent that you no longer care that you can't care. It's this really weird mixture of restlessness, boredom, despair... I agree with the desert monks that it is a major human emotion, the same as anger or greed or envy; it's just been ignored." — Kathleen Norris
Some of the resources and authors mentioned in this episode:
Kathleen Norris, The Cloister Walk
Kathleen Norris, Acedia and Me
Kathleen Norris, Dakota: A Spiritual Geography
Kathleen Norris, Amazing Grace
Kathleen Norris, The Virgin of Bennington
Kathleen Norris, Falling Off
Thomas Merton, Collected Poems of Thomas Merton
David Dwyer, Ariana Olisvos: Her Last Works and Days
Pink Floyd, Wish You Were Here
Emily Dickinson, The Complete Poems
George Orwell, "Politics and the English Language" found in Essays
William Stafford, Ask Me: 100 Essential Poems
The Psalms
Jane Flanders, Timepiece
Mary Oliver, Devotions: The Selected Poems
Denise Levertov, The Collected Poems
Ann Porter, Living Things: Collected Poems
Hildegard of Bingen, Scivias
Mechthild of Magdeburg, The Flowing Light of the Godhead
Evagrius Ponticus, The Praktikos & Chapters on Prayer
The Desert Mothers, Spiritual Practices from the Women of the Wilderness
Robert Wise, dir., The Sound of Music
Gregory the Great, Dialogues
Kathleen Norris on Skype with Carl McColman and Kevin Johnson. Listen to part 2 of this interview to hear their conversation.
Episode 35: Silence, Poetry and Acedia: A Conversation with Kathleen Norris (Part One)
Hosted by: Cassidy Hall
Guest: Kathleen Norris
Date Recorded: September 17, 2018
Parker J. Palmer, Part 2: On the Brink of Silence (Episode 34)
Oct 01, 2018
This week our conversation with Quaker activist, author, and educator Parker J. Palmer continues. Please listen to Part One (Episode 33) if you haven't already done so.
In this week's episode, we explore the question of how sometimes silence can be toxic (a "silencing" rather than the silence that frees), and how Quaker spirituality has informed Palmer's relationship with silence. He examines the difference between "adversarial listening" and "consensual decision-making" which embraces silence as a way to foster community and healthy relationships. Perhaps most moving of all is Palmer's heartfelt story about who is "silence hero" is.
One of the great things about poetry, the reason it's so appealing to people who are on a spiritual quest, is that there's a lot of space and a lot of silence between the lines, and between the words... poetry and silence have a great relationship to each other. — Parker J. Palmer
Palmer's deeply contemplative approach to silence, to education, to politics, and to vocation make his voice more important than ever as we seek to navigate the challenging issues of our time.
Some of the resources and authors mentioned in this episode:
Parker J. Palmer, On the Brink of Everything
Parker J. Palmer, The Courage to Teach
Parker J. Palmer, Healing the Heart of Democracy
Parker J. Palmer, Let Your Life Speak
Parker J. Palmer, A Hidden Wholeness
Parker J. Palmer, The Promise of Paradox
Parker J. Palmer, The Active Life
Thomas Merton, The Intimate Merton: His Life from His Journals
Thomas Merton, The Sign of Jonas
Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander
Thomas Merton, Zen and the Birds of Appetite
Thomas Merton, The Asian Journal
Thomas Merton, The Way of Chuang Tzu
Thomas Merton, The Seven Storey Mountain
Henri Nouwen, Reaching Out
Henri Nouwen, Out of Solitude
Richard Rohr, Silent Compassion
Wendell Berry, What I Stand On: The Collected Essays
Wendell Berry, The Selected Poems
Wendell Berry, The Memory of Old Jack
Wendell Berry, Hannah Coulter
Mary Oliver, "When Death Comes" found in Devotions: The Selected Poems
Wendell Berry, "How to be a poet" found in New Collected Poems
Thich Nhat Hanh, Silence: The Power of Quiet in a World Full of Noise
The Dalai Lama, The Art of Happiness
Henri Nouwen, The Wounded Healer
Episode 34: On the Brink of Silence: A Conversation with Parker J. Palmer (Part Two)
Hosted by: Cassidy Hall
With: Kevin Johnson, Carl McColman
Guest: Parker J. Palmer
Date Recorded: July 13, 2018
Parker J. Palmer, Part 1: On the Brink of Silence (Episode 33)
Sep 24, 2018
Parker J. Palmer is a world-renowned writer, speaker, educator, and activist whose work explores issues and concerns related to spirituality, education, community, leadership, and social change. He is the author of many books, including Let Your Life Speak,A Hidden Wholeness,The Promise of Paradox, and The Active Life.
He is a member of the Religious Society of Friends, commonly known as the Quakers.
"The impact of silence is not only solace, but disturbance. Silence forces you to look at your life in some very challenging ways. I think in our culture that's once of the reasons silence is not popular. It's one of the reasons we fill the air with noise, and
we fill our minds with noise, because we avoid having to take that deep dive into ourselves." — Parker J. Palmer
Parker joined us in July for a splendid conversation including insight into his latest book,On the Brink of Everything: Grace, Gravity and Getting Old — and so much more. He proved to be so generous with his time that our conversation extended well over an hour — and so we are pleased to present our first "two-part" Encountering Silence interview! Episode 33 begins the conversation, and the conclusion of the interview is found in Episode 34.
"First the silence broke me down, and then it gave me a context, once I understood what was happening, a context in which to rebuild a faith that was rooted in experience. That's an incredible gift." — Parker J. Palmer
He shares early memories of silence — from solitary hours in childhood spent reading and building model airplanes — and then muses on how silence accompanied his adult life as a social activist, community organizer, and Quaker educator. After a serendipitous encounter with the writings of Thomas Merton, Palmer discovered that silence was essential not only to his spiritual practice, but to discovering both the riches — and to the shadow — of his own soul.
"I began to recognize that the burnout that I was beginning to feel was about six months away as a terminal burnout, if I didn't start practicing some things that would help me avoid it, and silence was one of those things." — Parker J. Palmer
Some of the resources and authors mentioned in this episode:
Parker J. Palmer, On the Brink of Everything
Parker J. Palmer, The Courage to Teach
Parker J. Palmer, Healing the Heart of Democracy
Parker J. Palmer, Let Your Life Speak
Parker J. Palmer, A Hidden Wholeness
Parker J. Palmer, The Promise of Paradox
Parker J. Palmer, The Active Life
Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island
Thomas Merton, The Seven Storey Mountain
Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain
Martin Luther, The Ninety-Five Theses and Other Writings
Sydney Carter, The Present Tense: Songs of Sydney Carter
John of the Cross, The Dark Night of the Soul
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together
Thomas Merton, The Sign of Jonas
Barbara Holmes, Joy Unspeakable
Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet
"Truth isn't in the conclusions, because the conclusions keep changing — in every field I know anything about. It's in the conversation. If you want to live in the truth, you have to know how to live in the conversation." — Parker J. Palmer
Episode 33: On the Brink of Silence: A Conversation with Parker J. Palmer (Part One)
Hosted by: Cassidy Hall
With: Kevin Johnson, Carl McColman
Guest: Parker J. Palmer
Date Recorded: July 13, 2018
Paul Quenon, OCSO: Silence and Poetry at Gethsemani Abbey (Episode 32)
Sep 20, 2018
Poet, photographer, and memoirist Br. Paul Quenon, OCSO sat down to chat with Cassidy Hall this past July when she was visiting Gethsemani Abbey.
Author of several volumes of poetry including Unquiet Vigil: New and Selected Poems, Br. Paul is also the author of a newly published autobiography, In Praise of the Useless Life: A Monk's Memoir. His memoir is a delightful and charming story of monastic life not only as a forum for deep spiritual exploration, but also as the foundation for a life devoted to music, art, and especially poetry.
Cassidy and Brother Paul
Brother Paul entered monastic life in 1958, when he was only 17 years old — back before the reforms of the Second Vatical Council, when the life of a Trappist was even more austere than it is today. His novice master turned out to be Thomas Merton, who eventually became an inspiration to Brother Paul not only as a monk, but as a writer.
In their conversation, Cassidy and Brother Paul discuss his life story, his experience as a monk, as a writer, and as a lover of nature. He enthuses on his special love for the poet Emily Dickinson, and shares the poem of hers which convinced him that she was a mystic (#315). He also offers a 'sneak peek' of his current writing, sharing some poems he is currently writing. Through it all, in the heart of his rich and cultured life, silence has been his constant companion.
There is a kind of silence which comes from stilling the mind, and you can develop that capacity, how to not fight thoughts so much as set them aside... if you want to be free, free your mind... instead of fighting the thoughts you just stand above them like on a bridge and watch the water flow by... but then there is a kind of silence that descends upon you, and it's like the presence... it happens on its own, and that's really special. You may get that, or you may not get it... it's not a matter of looking for it, because if you're looking for it, than you're thinking of something, you have an expectation and you're dealing with your expectation. — Brother Paul Quenon, OCSO
Some of the resources and authors mentioned in this episode:
Paul Quenon, In Praise of the Useless Life: A Monk's Memoir
Paul Quenon, Unquiet Vigil: New and Selected Poems
Paul Quenon, Bells of the Hours
Paul Quenon, Afternoons with Emily
Paul Quenon, Monkswear
Paul Quenon, Laughter: My Purgatory
Paul Quenon, Terrors of Paradise
Paul Quenon with Judith Valente and Michael Bever, The Art of Pausing
Kathleen Norris, The Cloister Walk
Thomas Merton, The Seven Storey Mountain
Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ
Pico Iyer, The Art of Stillness: Adventures in Going Nowhere
Dianne Aprile, The Abbey of Gethsemani: Place of Peace and Paradox
John Eudes Bamberger, Thomas Merton: Prophet of Renewal
Kathleen Norris, Acedia and Me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer's Life
Emily Dickinson, The Complete Poems
Robert Morneau, A New Heart: Eleven Qualities of Holiness
Jessica Powers, The Selected Poetry
Rainer Maria Rilke, Selected Poetry
Guerric of Igny, Liturgical Sermons Volume One
Gregory of Naziansus, Festal Orations
Gregory of Nyssa, From Glory to Glory
Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire
Gary Snyder, The Gary Snyder Reader
Fenton Johnson, Everywhere Home
The Grail Psalms: A Liturgical Psalter
The opposite of faith is indifference. — Br. Paul Quenon, OCSO
Filmmaker Patrick Shen, Brother Paul, and Cassidy Hall on the porch of Thomas Merton's hermitage, on the grounds of Gethsemani Abbey.
Episode 32: Silence and Poetry at Gethsemani Abbey: A Conversation with Paul Quenon, OCSO
Hosted by: Cassidy Hall
Introduced by: Kevin Johnson
Guest: Paul Quenon, OCSO
Date Recorded: July 4, 2018
Silence in the Summertime (Episode 31)
Aug 20, 2018
It's summertime! How do you find silence amidst the droning of cicadas or locusts? What does it mean to be silent during the electric crackle of a late afternoon thunderstorm? How do we maintain our commitment to silence when we're juggling family vacations, back to school to-do lists, or even more lasting and significant life transitions? We have this myth that summer is a laid-back time, but often we find it carries its own intensity. Where do we find silence then?
In the middle of this change... the silence really stirs up a lot. So it helps me to find a balance, a rhythm, but it also doesn't allow me to run away from the fear, or the joy, or anything else. It's right there in my face. — Kevin Johnson
Cassidy shares a provocative quote from an essay by Mary Oliver in which she talks about how poetry needs to "rest in intensity," and uses this as her metaphor for navigating a very busy summer — a summer which she describes as being like a poem.
Kevin finds his summer to be both joyful and yet poignant, as one of his daughters prepares to go away to college for the first time. And yet this has been a time for him to find a new connection to his own practice of silence, and how an embodied sense of silence has felt like a friend reassuring him that everything is okay.
Carl, meanwhile explores how his relationship with silence this summer has been supported by two endeavors beyond his daily meditation practice: taking yoga classes with his wife, and writing poetry... just for joy.
I'm trying to look at my summer as a poem... just keep moving forward, just keep plugging away, but finding those pauses that often become shorter in times like this, that often become just the gaze out the window, or just the long stare into the coffee cup. — Cassidy Hall
We finish this episode with each member of the team briefly recounting the books we've been reading — and even share some insight into the t-shirts we were wearing the day we recorded this episode!
The silence is always there. And the question is, to what extent are we listening to it, or are we listening to whatever else is going on? — Carl McColman
Some of the resources and authors mentioned in this episode:
Mary Oliver, Winter Hours: Prose, Prose Poems, and Poetry
Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace is Every Step
Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace is Every Breath
Simone Weil, Love in the Void: Where God Finds Us
Parker Palmer, Let Your Life Speak: Listening to the Voice of Vocation
Austin Channing Brown, I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness
Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience and Other Essays
Anthony Storr, Solitude: A Return to the Self
Lewis Hyde, The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World
Owen Barfield, Saving the Appearances
J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings
C. S. Lewis, The Signature Classics
Charles Williams, Outline of Romantic Theology
Mary Oliver, Devotions: The Selected Poems
Michael Pollan, How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence
Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma
Carlos Castaneda,
Alan Watts,
Timothy Leary,
Joel F. Harrington, Dangerous Mystic: Meister Eckhart's Path to the God Within
Daniel Horan, The Franciscan Heart of Thomas Merton
Cassidy talks about fundraising for research to help fight the degenerative disease Friedreich's Ataxia. To learn more about this disease and to contribute to the fight against it, visit the Friedreich's Ataxia Research Alliance website, www.curefa.org.
And finally, here is a glimpse of some of the handpainted silk scarves created by Fran McColman. These aren't for sale (yet) — but stay tuned!
Episode 31: Silence in the Summertime
Hosted by: Carl McColman
With: Cassidy Hall, Kevin Johnson
Date Recorded: August 9, 2018
Leah Weiss: Silence at Work (Episode 30)
Aug 06, 2018
Unless you work in a library or a monastery, you may not intuitively associate "silence" and "work." But it doesn't have to be that way. In fact, our working lives have everything to gain if the workplace could become more hospitable to silence — and related mindfulness practices. Leah Weiss, PhD integrates Buddhist wisdom, mindfulness practice, and holistic management principles to articulate a vision of how it is possible to cultivate a more "sane" workplace. Dr. Weiss is a professor at Stanford University Graduate School of Business and is the author of the New York Times bestelling book How We Work: Live Your Purpose, Reclaim Your Sanity, and Embrace the Daily Grind.
I think of silence in two ways. I think of it as the literal having periods in the day, intermittently, and sometimes they're long, and sometimes they're not, of having literal quiet. But I also think of it as inner silence that we can access (or not), and the world around us can be noisy, but if we have this ability to touch in with our own clarity and mental spaciousness... that's another way to access silence, and you can do that no matter how loud it is on the city streets. — Leah Weiss, PhD
"Buddha" art by Leah's son Caleb
Weiss talks about how Tibetan Buddhism provided the forum for her own journey with silence — and how the experience of having a family (three small children) has deepened and clarified her understanding of the power of silence in her life. Arising out of her work with persons who are trauma survivors, or who have experienced toxic forms of silence (such as their voice being silenced), she offers insights not only about the blessings of silence, but also the importance of addressing honestly problems related to how individuals and organizations use silence in unhealthy ways as well. She muses on how community and connection are important "adjuncts" to the exploration of silence: by being able to talk to others, we more efficiently facilitate healing in our lives.
There's lots of people who are out there claiming all sorts of absurd stuff about how mindfulness is a silver bullet and if you teach people to meditate, all problems will be solved. I don't believe that. — Leah Weiss, PhD
Leah Weiss's book:
Leah Weiss, How We Work: Live Your Purpose, Reclaim Your Sanity, and Embrace the Daily Grind
What does it mean to create an environment where we can skillfully build positive silence, along with connection, support and healing? Not all of us are survivors of intense trauma, but all of us have traumas in our lives, in places where there is pain that we don't' want to touch, that hurts, and we need to have ways to deal with it. — Leah Weiss, PhD
Episode 30: Silence and Mindfulness at Work: A Conversation with Leah Weiss
Hosted by: Kevin Johnson
With: Cassidy Hall, Carl McColman
Guest: Leah Weiss
Date Recorded: July 12, 2018
James Finley: Silence and Vulnerability (Episode 29)
Jul 23, 2018
Author, retreat leader, and psychologist James Finley brings his experience as a student and spiritual directee of Thomas Merton to his work guiding others into the mysteries of Christ and of silence. He is the author of Merton's Palace of Nowhere, Christian Meditation: Experiencing the Presence of God, and The Contemplative Heart. He has also created audio learning series, including Thomas Merton's Path to the Palace of Nowhere and Meister Eckhart's Living Wisdom.
"When we get involved in spirituality, we're drawn to it, we tend to have a lot of questions, and that's why we tend to read spiritual books or watch podcasts and well we should, and we should get spiritual guidance and so on. But then... we get a little deeper, here we realize that it's not so much that we're the ones asking the questions, but God's asking the questions, God's asking me a question... and I start to discover that not only do I not know the answer to God's question, I don't understand the question." — James Finley
Cassidy met Jim through the International Thomas Merton Society, and discovering that they are neighbors in California, they made arrangements last month to get together to record this conversation. As they explore silence together, Jim tells Cassidy stories from his six years living as a Trappist novice (don't miss the story of talking to Thomas Merton about the pigs!), and how his entry into the world of radical solitude and silence — under the guidance of one of the great spiritual writers of the past century — Finley learned to find his voice as a seeker of God, and eventually discovered his vocation even though it took him away from the cloister.
"We can't with integrity claim to be on a spiritual path and turn our back on the suffering of this world." — James Finley
He and Cassidy talk about the tragedy of how contemporary Christianity has abandoned its own mystical heritage, learning to discover the mystery of God beyond all "boxes" and definitions, the "infinity of the unexplainable," learning to love the world as part of the contemplative project, the importance of paradox and perplexity, how language ought to be "in the service of the unsayable," how the experience of trauma can impact our spiritual lives, and other topics along these lines.
“I have only one desire, and that is the desire for solitude-to disappear into God, to be submerged in His peace, to be lost in the secret of His Face.” — Thomas Merton
Some of the resources and authors mentioned in this episode:
James Finley, Merton's Palace of Nowhere
James Finley, The Contemplative Heart
James Finley, Christian Meditation
James Finley, Thomas Merton's Path to the Palace of Nowhere
James Finley, Meister Eckhart's Living Wisdom
Thomas Merton, The Sign of Jonas
Jim Forest, The Root of War is Fear
John of the Cross, The Collected Works of St. John of the Cross
Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander
Martin Heidegger, Being and Time
Richard Rohr, The Naked Now
Cynthia Bourgeault, The Heart of Centering Prayer
Carolyn Myss and James Finley, Transforming Trauma: Uncovering the Spiritual Dimension of Healing
Rollo May, Freedom and Destiny
Meister Eckhart, The Complete Mystical Works (Sermons)
Richard Rohr and James Finley, Intimacy: the Divine Ambush
Richard Rohr, James Finley, and Cynthia Bourgeault, Following the Mystics through the Narrow Gate
Teresa of Ávila, The Interior Castle
Thomas Merton, Thoughts in Solitude
Thomas Merton, The Intimate Merton
Visit Jim Finley's website at www.contemplativeway.org. His recommended reading list can be accessed here: "Reading List for Beginners"
“Lovers cannot force the oceanic oneness, but can assume the inner stance that offers the least resistance to the gift of that … The poet cannot make the poem happen, but the poet can assume the inner stance that offers the least resistance to the gift of the poem.” — James Finley
Paula Pryce: Silence, Bodily Knowing and Ritual (Episode 28)
Jul 09, 2018
What happens when a friendly anthropologist conducts an ethnographic study of contemporary contemplative Christianity in America, looking at subjects both in monasteries and in secular life?
Paula Pryce does just this kind of work in her insightful book The Monk's Cell: Ritual and Knowledge in American Contemplative Christianity. Spending several years of research with teachers like Cynthia Bourgeault and Thomas Keating, along with monasteries like the Society of St. John the Evangelist in Massachusetts, Pryce offers a detailed exploration of how contemplative spirituality is making a profound transformation in our time. From previous days when such practice was almost exclusively found within cloistered walls, to the increasing (if still marginal) presence of contemplation in churches, centering prayer groups, online forums, and educational offerings such as the Center for Action & Contemplation's Living School or Bourgeault's own Wisdom School, contemplative practice is a vibrant subculture within Christianity — and Pryce, to our knowledge, is the first ethnographer to write about contemplative Christianity in a scholarly, yet accessible, fashion.
I always meditated before I wrote... I go back in my mind, meditate, and then enter in through memory to those places where I was doing research, and that allowed me to give language to these non-verbal situations. — Paula Pryce
What emerges from her research is a recognition that contemplation (and, by implication, the practice of silence) invites the practitioner into a new way of knowing, that is marked by qualities such as embodiment, community, humility, and ritual.
I'm always after trying to understand the beauty of humankind. We have lots of messages about how awful we are! And we can't ignore that and I wouldn't want to. But I honestly think we need to embrace how wonderful humans are. — Paula Pryce
In this conversation, Paula joins the Encountering Silence team to explore not only her own relationship with silence, but also how her research deepened her knowledge of contemplation as a transformational practice. She movingly speaks of her Anglo-Indian father as her silence hero, and draw connections between his lifelong meditation practice and his commitment to social action. She reflects on the paradox of writing about silence (expressing a non-verbal phenomena through the verbal medium of language), and on how ethnography, as a discipline, can help us to understand silence better.
One can use anything as a contemplative practice. That's the main point of this book: people are trying to train themselves in everyday life as contemplatives, in every action and every way of being. — Paula Pryce
Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
Paula S. Pryce, The Monk's Cell: Ritual and Knowledge in American Contemplative Christianity
Eleanor H. Porter, Pollyanna
Mahatma Gandhi, The Story of My Experiments With Truth
Leo Tolstoy, A Confession and Other Religious Writings
The Beatles, Abbey Road
Victor Turner, From Ritual to Theatre: The Human Seriousness of Play
Arnold van Gennep, The Rites of Passage
Cynthia Bourgeault, The Heart of Centering Prayer: Nondual Christianity in Theory and Practice
David Abram, The Spell of the Sensuous: Perception and Language in a More-Than-Human World
Seneca, The Stoic Philosophy
Joseph Cassant, L'Attente Dans Le Silence
Robert Alter, The Book of Psalms: Translation with Commentary
Thomas Merton, The Seven Storey Mountain
Hadewijch, The Complete Works
Mary Oliver, Devotions: The Selected Poems
Episode 27: Silence, Bodily Knowing, and Ritual: A Conversation with Paula Pryce
Hosted by: Kevin Johnson
With: Cassidy Hall, Carl McColman
Guest: Paula Pryce
Date Recorded: May 29, 2018
Kenneth S. Leong: Silence, Christianity and Zen (Episode 27)
Jun 25, 2018
How does silence impact spirituality at the level of interfaith or interreligious engagement? Our guest today, Kenneth Leong, wrote a seminal book on Christian-Buddhist interspirituality, and so we were eager to have him join the Encountering Silence conversation to reflect on how silence takes us to a place beyond the limitations or separations of doctrine, dogma, or religious culture.
Kenneth S. Leong is the author of The Zen Teachings of Jesus and a German-language book of Zen Stories, 100 Zen-Geschichten für das neue Jahrtausend: Anleitung zum Glücklichsein. After working over twenty years in finance, he pursued a Master's Degree in Teaching and devoted twelve years to teaching in a variety of education settings, primarily teaching mathematics but also finance, philosophy, and Zen.
Mr. Leong has been a speaker and lecturer on Buddhism and spirituality since the mid-1990s, having taught in Manhattan's Chinatown, the New York Open Center, and other continuing education and adult learning venues. He is active on social media, moderating or contributing to groups devoted to topics such as Buddhism, Alan Watts, and Zen Christians.
Silence, to me, means right concentration. — Kenneth S. Leong
Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
Kenneth S. Leong, The Zen Teachings of Jesus
Alan Watts, The Way of Zen
Richard Rohr, Everything Belongs: The Gift of Contemplative Prayer
Red Pine (tr.), The Heart Sutra
Red Pine (tr.), The Diamond Sutra
Red Pine (tr.), The Platform Sutra: The Zen Teaching of Hui-neng
Barbara A. Holmes, Joy Unspeakable: Contemplative Practices of the Black Church
Thomas Merton, The Asian Journal of Thomas Merton
The Desert Mothers and Fathers, Early Christian Wisdom Sayings
Evagrius Ponticus, The Praktikos & Chapters on Prayer
The Dalai Lama, The Art of Happiness
Carl Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections
Thich Nhat Hanh, You Are Here
Walpola Rahula, What the Buddha Taught
William Blake, The Marriage of Heaven and Hell
J. Krishnamurti, Think on These Things
Henri Nouwen, Peacework: Prayer, Resistance, Community
Bhikkhu Bodhi (ed.), In the Buddha's Words: An Anthology of Discourses from the Pali Canon
Alan Watts, Tao: The Watercourse Way
Josef Pieper, Leisure: The Basis of Culture
St. Francis of Assisi, In His Own Words: The Essential Writings
Episode 27: Encountering Silence in Christianity and Zen: A Conversation with Kenneth S. Leong
Hosted by: Carl McColman
With: Kevin Johnson, Cassidy Hall
Guest: Kenneth S. Leong
Date Recorded: May 25, 2018
Barbara A. Holmes: Silence as Unspeakable Joy (Episode 26)
Jun 14, 2018
How does the encounter with silence usher us into mystery? And how is our relationship with silence shaped by, or challenged by, the challenges and dynamics of social difference and privilege? What is the relationship between contemplation and community, and how is community actually essential to authentic contemplation? How are tears, and moaning, and dancing, and lament, essential to contemplation — especially among those persons and communities who experience oppression?
“Silence has power, positively, it’s life-giving... and it also can be a hiding place for people of the dominant culture.” — Dr. Barbara A. Holmes
These are just a few of the questions we explore in today’s episode, a conversation with scholar and contemplative the Reverend Dr. Barbara A. Holmes. Dr. Holmes is the author of Joy Unspeakable: Contemplative Practices of the Black Church, and has emerged as a leading voice calling for affirming and celebrating contemplation as it emerges in the lives of all people, regardless of ethnicity, gender, or religious affiliation.
“The women in my family were the ones who really seeded contemplation into my very being. I watched them — I saw that mysticism didn’t have to be weird. It was very weird, but you could still make biscuits! You didn’t have to go berserk; you could do your normal life, be loving, kind, help others, and still host these magical moments, wondrous moments, awe-inducing moments, and still do ordinary things like meet your kids at the stop on the school bus.” — Dr. Barbara A. Holmes
Her thoughtful and insightful reflection on silence and contemplation is grounded in her family of origin — coming from the Gullah people of the SC/GA low country — and her work which explores the intersection between spirituality, stillness, and social justice.
“Silence isn’t the word that I often use. Just simply because of the problem for people of color, and women, who have been silenced... I tend to use the language of stillness, of centering, and of embodied ineffability.” — Dr. Barbara A. Holmes
Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
Barbara A. Holmes, Joy Unspeakable
Barbara A. Holmes, Race and the Cosmos
Barbara A. Holmes, Dreaming
Audre Lorde, Your Silence Will Not Protect You
Jane Elliott, A Collar in My Pocket: The Blue Eyes/Brown Eyes Exercise
Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander
Thomas Merton, Echoing Silence
Margaret Barker, Temple Mysticism
The Desert Mothers and Fathers, Early Christian Wisdom Sayings
Janet McKenzie, Holiness and the Feminine Spirit: The Art of Janet McKenzie
Matthew Fox, Creativity
Beyoncé, Dangerously in Love
Kendrick Lamar, Revolution Music
John Coltrane, A Love Supreme
Jimi Hendrix, The Best of Jimi Hendrix: Experience Hendrix
Taizé, Chants for Peace and Serenity
June Jordan, Directed by Desire: The Collected Poems of June Jordan
John Stewart Bell, Speakable and Unspeakable in Quantum Mechanics
James A. Noel, “Being, Nothingness and the Signification of Silence in African-American Religious Consciousness” in Black Religion and the Imagination of Matter in the Atlantic World
Stacy M. Floyd-Thomas, Deeper Shades of Purple: Womanism in Religion and Society
Kelly Brown Douglas, Sexuality and the Black Church: A Womanist Perspective
Katie Cannon, Black Womanist Ethics
Howard Thurman, Essential Writings
Barbara Ransby, Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement
“The willingness to listen, on both sides, is the beginning of reconciliation.” — Dr. Barbara A. Holmes
Episode 26: Silence as Unspeakable Joy: A Conversation with Dr. Barbara A. Holmes
Hosted by: Cassidy Hall
With: Kevin Johnson, Carl McColman
Guest: Barbara Holmes
Date Recorded: May 24, 2018
Six Months of Encountering Silence! (Episode 25)
Jun 06, 2018
Hello friends!
Can you believe that the Encountering Silence Podcast released its first episode six months ago?!?
Yes — our "pilot episode" was released on December 6, 2017.
This week we're celebrating our six-month-anniversary with a brief conversation in which we reflect on some of the insights and surprises that the last six months have yielded for us.
Silence includes everyone, silence levels the ground and flattens our egos, to recall that we're all human and we all belong to one another. — Cassidy Hall
In the interest of full disclosure, let's say it right up front: this is our "pledge drive" episode. One of the things we've learned over the last few months is that we had seriously under-estimated how much time it takes to plan, record, edit, release, and promote a podcast.
We love doing this, and so we're not begrudging one second of our time. But since we are all self-employed, we also have to balance the joy we find in the podcast with the reality that we need to be earning a living.
Over a dozen listeners have made the commitment to support the podcast with a monthly pledge through Patreon. If you are one of those, please know how much we appreciate your support. Thank you!
If you haven't made a pledge, then we humbly but sincerely ask you to consider doing so now. Even $1 a month makes a difference. Frankly, we would be more excited to have one hundred people pledge a dollar a month than to have one person pledge $100. Why? Because it shows us that people want to be part of the Encountering Silence Circle.
Please visit our Patreon page at patreon.com/encounteringsilence
In this episode, we mention a wonderful book by Henri Nouwen called A Spirituality of Fundraising. We recommend it to anyone who is a fundraiser (or a donor!) as it beautifully expresses how giving money (and asking for support from current and future donors) can be an expression of community, of caring, and indeed of spirituality.
Episode 25: Six Months of Encountering Silence
Hosted by: Carl McColman
With: Cassidy Hall, Kevin Johnson
Date Recorded: May 21, 2018
Mirabai Starr: Silence, Stillness, Passion, and Embodiment (Episode 24)
May 30, 2018
"I'm rather obsessed with the mystics of all traditions," enthuses Mirabai Starr, as she muses on the profound relationship between silence and stillness and passionate/ecstatic mystical love.
In a rich conversation that touches on the beauty of the high desert of the American Southwest, the earthy/embodied passion of the spirituality of wilderness, and the uniquely subversive wisdom of the feminine mystics, Mirabai deepens and expands our ongoing conversation on silence by inviting us into a place where the spirituality of stillness meets, and embraces, the erotic spirituality of ecstasy, joy, and love.
Most of the mystics, even though they're these extravagant love poets, who are overflowing with passion, they all also are grounded in this sense of stillness. And they cultivate that stillness. — Mirabai Starr
Mirabai Starr is an author, translator, retreat leader, and leader in the contemplative interspiritual community. Born into a secular Jewish family, Mirabai describes herself as a "daughter of the counter-culture," having spent part of her childhood at the Lama Foundation (an intentional spiritual community, famous as the home of Ram Dass). As an adult, she translated several of the Christian mystics, including John of the Cross, Teresa of Ávila, and Julian of Norwich, into accessible and acclaimed contemporary English.
So all the mystics of all traditions, that I know and love anyway, speak to the transformational power of not knowing. I think that's intimately connected with silence. There's a higher truth that is only present, it seems, when we let all of the concepts go, and allow ourselves to know nothing. It's a vulnerable state, it's a state of spiritual nakedness, it's not for the faint of heart. — Mirabai Starr
More recently she has written books that celebrate her spirituality (God of Love) and that recount her own challenging and at times heartbreaking life story (Caravan of No Despair). A popular teacher both in person and online, Mirabai's wisdom is anchored in her own deeply embodied spirituality, drawing on the insight of all the great spiritual traditions and particular on her intuitive celebration of the Divine Feminine.
The devotional impulse leads me into the presence of the Sacred, and then I am left with this kind of hush, that I drop into, and then that feeds back in again to that devotional impulse, because following those periods of deep stillness that just wash over my soul, I have that joyous urge to praise. So it's this ever-flowing dance between devotion and nonduality, or between celebration and stillness. — Mirabai Starr
Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
Mirabai Starr, Caravan of No Despair: A Memoir of Loss and Transformation
Mirabai Starr, God of Love: A Guide to the Heart of Christianity, Judaism and Islam
Mirabai Starr, Saint Teresa of Ávila: Passionate Mystic
John of the Cross, Dark Night of the Soul, translated by Mirabai Starr
Teresa of Ávila, Interior Castle, translated by Mirabai Starr
Teresa of Ávila, The Book of My Life, translated by Mirabai Starr
Julian of Norwich, The Showings, translated by Mirabai Starr
John of the Cross, The Poems of St. John of the Cross, translated by Willis Barnstone
Mirabai, Ecstatic Poems, translated by Robert Bly and Jane Hirshfield
Ram Dass, Be Here Now
John of the Cross, Living Flame of Love
Geoffrey Chaucer, Canterbury Tales
Daniel Ladinsky, The Gift: Poems by Hafiz
Daniel Ladinsky, The Purity of Desire: 100 Poems of Rumi
Thomas Keating, Invitation to Love
Pablo Neruda, Extravagaria, translated by Alistair Reed
Marie Howe, The Kingdom of Ordinary Time
Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander
Plotinus, The Enneads
Denise Levertov, The Collected Poems
How, how can we step up and offer ourselves in service, to help in some way to alleviate some suffering in this world, unless we have taken that suffering into the cells of our own b...
Jessica Mesman Griffith: The Silence of Missing Voices (Episode 23)
May 24, 2018
What is the relationship between silence, creativity, fear, doubt, death, and missing voices — especially in terms of art and literature?
To explore this provocative question, we turned to our mutual friend — and one of the most gifted and articulate writers of our time — Jessica Mesman Griffith.
It’s very difficult for me to be in any kind of silence.. I love being out in nature and not having the iPod. When I take my long walks every day, I don’t take my iPod, I don’t listen to music, I don’t have earbuds, but the sounds of nature are not the sounds of my own body. It’s the sounds of my own body I think that terrify me. — Jessica Mesman Griffith
Jessica Mesman Griffith is an award-winning essayist and memoirist who honestly and fearlessly explores the intersections between religion (especially Catholicism), art and creativity, mental health, and social justice. She is the founder of the Sick Pilgrim blog (www.patheos.com/blogs/sickpilgrim), described as "a space for the spiritually sick, and their fellow travelers, to rest a while." Her books include Love and Salt: A Spiritual Friendship Shared in Letters (co-authored with Amy Andrews), A Book of Grace Filled Days: 2016, and Daily Inspiration for Women (co-authored with Ginny Kubitz Moyer, Vinita Hampton Wright, and Margaret Silf).
Jessica's authenticity is revealed from the first minutes of our conversation, when she discusses how silence seemed unsettling to her as a child. Musing on the relationship between silence and the fear of death, or the link between happiness and conviviality, and even the anxiety that comes from the noises of her own body, she muses on how she has discovered different "types" of silence (the silence of nature seems different from the silence in a suburban home).
Good writing is having an ear… Having an ear for how something sounds on the page, for the rhythm of language… The best writers have an ear for where something falls flat or doesn’t sound true. — Jessica Mesman Griffith
The conversation goes on to explore the questions of the relationship between silence and creativity, privilege, and the body. Invoking poetry, horror movies, music, narrative nonfiction, we look at silence from many angles, acknowledging that the human experience of silence is messy and multivalent — pretty much like the human experience in general.
Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
Jessica Mesman Griffith & Amy Andrews, Love and Salt: A Spiritual Friendship Shared in Letters
Jessica Mesman Griffith, A Book of Grace Filled Days: 2016
Jessica Mesman Griffith et al., Daily Inspiration for Women
Thomas Merton, Love and Living
William Friedkin (dir.), The Exorcist
Wes Craven (dir.), The Serpent and the Rainbow
Tobe Hooper (dir.), Poltergeist
Tillie Olsen, Silences
Barbara Holmes, Joy Unspeakable
Natalie Diaz, When My Brother Was an Aztec
Tyehimba Jess, Olio
Rosalie Morales Kearns, Kingdom of Women
Rosalie Morales Kearns, Virgins & Tricksters
George Saunders, Lincoln in the Bardo
Flannery O'Connor, Spiritual Writings
Walker Percy, Signposts in a Strange Land
Thomas Merton, Essential Writings
Vinny Flynn, Seven Secrets of the Eucharist
John Cage, Silence: Lectures and Writings
Vincent Katz (ed.), Black Mountain College: Experiment in Art
John Krasinski (dir.), A Quiet Place
Neil Young, Harvest Moon
Andy Warhol, The Philosophy of Andy Warhol
Yoko Ono, Grapefruit
Carlo Rovelli, Seven Brief Lessons on Physics
Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time
I think we’re certain that it [silence] means death and then we’re terrified that that’s what death is – that that’s all death is, the silent darkness. So in Christianity we revolt against that by making it as loud and hideously ugly apparently as we can, at all times… This is our ultimate fear–that there’s nothing. — Jessica Mesman Griffith
Goofing around in New York City.
Kurt Johnson: Silence, the Body, and Movement (Episode 22)
May 16, 2018
How is Silence related to the human body? To movement, exercise, and performance? To physical, as well as mental and spiritual, wellness?
Today we begin what we hope will be an ongoing conversation in the Encountering Silence world, exploring these and similar questions.
Kurt Johnson
We open this exploration thanks to Kurt Johnson joining in the conversation today. Kurt Johnson is a personal trainer and massage therapist who works with individuals, small groups and corporations, to help people manage pain, lose weight, improve fitness, and simply live better through movement, training, and exercise. He co-owns the Core Fitness training studio in North Haven, CT, and has over twenty years of experience studying and practicing the art and science of physical movement — and helping others to achieve their goals and beyond for bodily wellness. On top of it all, Kurt is an avid runner and also engages in endurance competitions. He has entered and completed half-Iron Man and full Iron Man races.
What's going on is you're doing, doing, doing, doing, but we need to take a step back and "non-do," and focus more on the quietness of your body, paying attention to those little things that are going on in your body, and finding out why these things are happening. — Kurt Johnson
If "personal trainer" evokes in your mind a young drill sergeant, fresh out of the Marines, who barks orders at his clients in a gym blaring with loud music and glaring neon lights — well, Kurt Johnson is not that person! Rather, his focus is on integrating physical wellness with mental and spiritual nurture — and so needless to say, he has some interesting things to say about the importance of silence in regard to physical health, fitness, and wellness. Kurt sees his ultimate mission to help people to find complete freedom in their movement of mind, body, and spirit, so they can become who they truly are.
Oh, and by the way, Kurt is Kevin's brother. 😇
We begin our conversation by exploring why (and how) silence and physical wellness and performance go together, which includes looking at the paradox between performance-as-goal-attainment, and how silence invites us into a radical place without goals or achievements — a place Kurt calls "non-performance."
My goal for people is to increase their energy levels. If I can get them energy, then they're going to feel better and it's going to link them to what their ultimate goal is, their purpose—and that usually always circles right back around into deep silence. — Kurt Johnson
The conversation expands (pardon the pun) to include the importance of breathing as a foundational movement of the body. Kurt points out that we live in a culture that is so geared toward achievement and performance, that often many of us carry so much stress in our bodies that beneath our frenzied activity, often our bodies carry significant amounts of anxiety and pain. Thus, the path to wellness often lies not in more "performance," but paradoxically in learning to let go of our addiction to striving and achievement.
A baby, when they're breathing, it really is amazing to watch. What's going on is they have full belly breaths, whereas when we get older we tend to be more in the chest, and this is where our anxiety and our stresses go. — Kurt Johnson
Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
Jim Loehr, The Power of Full Engagement
Jim Loehr, The Only Way to Win
Bose, QuietComfort 20 Acoustic Noise Cancelling Headphones
Cassidy Hall and Patrick Shen, Notes on Silence
Patrick Shen (dir.), In Pursuit of Silence
Jim Loehr and Jack Groppel, The Corporate Athlete Advantage
Dan Buettner, The Blue Zones
Dan Buettner, The Blue Zones of Happiness
Sarah Marquis, Wild by Nature
Anthony DeMello, Awareness
Norman Doidge, The Brain that Changes Itself
Erik Dalton, Dynamic Body
Phil Page et al., The Assessment and Treatment of Muscular Imbalances...
Encountering Silence in Our Busy Lives (Episode 21)
May 09, 2018
If you could take a snapshot of your relationship with silence today, what would it look like? Perhaps you will have just come back from visiting a city where tragedy has brought about a new quality of silence. Perhaps you are just clinging to a daily sitting practice in the midst of a very busy life. Or silence is your companion in a time of personal or professional transformation.
In this episode, we muse on what our relationship with silence looks like nowadays. Reflecting on our busy lives and how we try to maintain an intentional relationship with silence in the midst of the busy-ness, we muse on the paradox of how silence calls us back from the "mindlessness" of a life that is dulled by too much time in front of a computer screen, or too much time sitting at a desk — but as we enter into silence, we are taken to a different kind of "mindlessness," a place of forgetting self-consciousness and letting go of ego-defined ways of thinking, seeing or being.
"If you go for a hike, which I do often to reduce stress and to recuperate and to be quiet and to enjoy the beauty, if I do that I start to notice there's another level of consciousness that's available to me, and that level of consciousness is tapped in through silence. ... One of the things I've noticed is that silence is that shift in attention away from where it's self-consciousness and all about my ego and my needs, to opening up to the wide world in front of me, and saying 'I'm a player in this, I'm part of the trees, I'm part of the wind, I'm involved in this eco-system,' and that I need to reconnect, that I'm not separate from the flow." — Kevin Johnson
We round out our conversation by reflecting on some of the books we are currently reading, including poetry and even a couple of "guilty pleasure" books. Cassidy finishes our conversation with a lovely poem from the great Spanish mystics St. John of the Cross.
Some of the resources and authors mentioned in this episode:
Richard Rohr, Everything Belongs
St. Francis of Assisi, In His Own Words: The Essential Writings
Mary Oliver, Devotions
Leah Weiss, How We Work
Kenneth Leong, The Zen Teachings of Jesus
Amy-Jill Levine (ed.), The Jewish Annotated New Testament
Evelyn Underhill, An Anthology of the Love of God
George Monbiat, Feral: Rewilding the Land, the Sea, and Human Life
Mary Oliver, Upstream: Selected Essays
Cal Newport, Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World
Amanda Lovelace, The Witch Doesn't Burn in This One
Jim Forest, The Root of War is Fear: Thomas Merton’s Advice to Peacemakers
Jim Forest, All is Grace: A Biography of Dorothy Day
Jim Forest, At Play in the Lion’s Den: A Biography and Memoir of Daniel Berrigan
Neil Gaiman, Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders
Rupi Kaur, Milk and Honey
Willis Barnstone (tr.), The Poems of St. John of the Cross
Cassidy referred to the book Carl is currently editing. It's called An Invitation to Celtic Wisdom which will be released in November.
Episode 21: Encountering Silence in Our Busy Lives
Hosted by: Cassidy Hall
With: Carl McColman, Kevin Johnson
Date Recorded: May 4, 2018
Jim Forest: Silence and Peacemaking (Episode 20)
May 02, 2018
As a peace activist, biographer, and lover of silence, author Jim Forest's deep humility and sincere way of being reveal to us much about listening, truly seeing, and deeply caring for our fellow human beings.
"The day starts in silence... and silence normally — not always, but normally — opens the door to prayer, so prayer and silence are very connected; sometimes the prayer is silence." — Jim Forest
Jim Forest, speaking at the Voices of Peace conference.
Describing himself as "an undergraduate student at Dorothy Day university" — and noting that he doesn't think he will ever graduate! — Jim Forest tells the story of a truly remarkable life — the child of American communists growing up in the 1950s, he tried his hand in the U.S. Navy but soon dropped out from the service to immerse himself in the world of the Catholic Worker Movement and anti-war activism, that led him to (among other things) co-founding the Catholic Peace Fellowship after the "Spiritual Roots of Peacemaking" retreat convened by Thomas Merton in 1964.
"Like arrows, words point, but they are not the target." — Jim Forest
Cassidy Hall recorded this conversation while participating in the "Voices of Peace" conference in Toronto in April 2018. Their gentle and intimate conversation explores art, philosophy, politics, the Eucharist, and spirituality — and how silence dances through all these dimensions of life.
Cassidy Hall and Jim Forest
With stories about legendary figures like peace activist A. J. Muste, Henri Nouwen, Thich Nhat Hanh, and (of course) Thomas Merton, this conversation provides deep and rich insight into a man who not only knew some of the great peace activists of the twentieth century, but who was indeed one of their number.
"Without silence, we don't hear anything." — Jim Forest
Some of the resources and authors mentioned in this episode:
Jim Forest, The Ladder of the Beatitudes
Jim Forest, Praying with Icons
Jim Forest, Road to Emmaus
Jim Forest, Living with Wisdom: A Life of Thomas Merton
Jim Forest, All is Grace: A Biography of Dorothy Day
Jim Forest, At Play in the Lion's Den: A Biography and Memoir of Daniel Berrigan
Thomas Merton, Essential Writings
Dorothy Day, Loaves and Fishes
Daniel Berrigan, Essential Writings
Thich Nhat Hanh, Essential Writings
Cassidy Hall and Patrick Shen, Notes on Silence
Patrick Shen (dir.), In Pursuit of Silence
Jim Forest, The Root of War is Fear: Thomas Merton's Advice to Peacemakers
A. J. Muste, Nonviolence in an Aggressive World
Thomas Merton, The Literary Essays (Includes "The Message to Poets")
Dorothy Day, The Long Loneliness
Henri Nouwen, Reaching Out
Jim Forest, Saint George and the Dragon
Jim Forest, Saint Nicholas and the Nine Gold Coins
Jim Forest, Silent as a Stone: Mother Maria of Paris and the Trash Can Rescue
Visit Jim and Nancy Forest's website www.jimandnancyforest.com.
Episode 20: Silence and Peacemaking: A Conversation with Jim Forest
Hosted by: Cassidy Hall
Introduced by: Kevin Johnson
Guest: Jim Forest
Date Recorded: April 27, 2018
It's cold in Toronto, even in the spring!
Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM: Silence, Action, and Contemplation (Episode 19)
Apr 25, 2018
Richard Rohr talks with us in this episode about silence, spirituality, contemplation, action, and why discernment is essential for each of these areas of life.
One of the most popular and beloved of living authors writing about contemplation , Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM is the founder of the Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque NM, and the dean of the online Living School. Through his popular books, audio recordings, conferences, and daily emails, this Franciscan priest has become a leading spokesperson for the recovery of contemplative spirituality in our time.
Kevin, Cassidy, and Carl skyping with Fr. Richard Rohr.
"I believe the primary orthopraxy — praxis — is silence. Primary: it precedes all other spiritual practices, all other spiritual disciplines. And of course we're first of all talking — and I know you know what I'm going to say — about interior silence. And that takes a while to achieve, because most of us, our mind fills up as soon as we open our eyes in the morning, with ideas, projects, agendas, arguments... and they're all of a verbal character." — Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM
Rohr spoke with the Encountering Silence team from his hermitage in New Mexico, where he offered insight not only into his work as a writer and speaker, but also into the challenges we all face as we seek to integrate contemplation (including silence) into the demands of contemporary life. Indeed, as our conversation progressed it became clear that, as much as he values silence, Rohr felt strongly that silence should never be used as an escape from the demands of relationships, communities, or the struggle for justice — the "action" that must be partnered with "contemplation."
Rohr has a keen understanding that silence is not something that not all people have easy access to — so, therefore, silence is a justice issue. He also points out that silence is not the same thing as contemplation (neither, for that matter, is being an introvert!) and that perhaps the most valuable gift that silence can give us is an invitation to move beyond the dualistic nature of language into a space that is restful, open, and simple — a space where, in the title of one of his most popular books, "Everything Belongs."
"Silence is a way of knowing." — Kevin Johnson
Richard Rohr is a warm and generous person and our conversation was quite intimate. He told us a remarkable story about encountering two of the most renowned Catholics of the twentieth century shortly after graduating from high school (spoiler alert: one of them was Thomas Merton!), and reflects in a truly beautiful and vulnerable about how it feels to be a man at 75 (we recorded just a few days after his birthday) where he finds grace in "having no agenda."
"If people do get into contemplation or silence in the first half of life, it's almost always by some encounter with limits. Let me call it that instead of suffering, because we're so afraid of the word suffering. But without limits entering your life, you tend to define your religion in terms of spiritual ascending, rather than descending." — Fr. Richard Rohr, OFM
Among the topics we touch on in our wide-ranging conversation is the distinction between true and false silence — as well as true and false dimensions of activism — the importance of being in the "second half" of life for embracing the contemplative life, the recognition that contemplation can take different forms in different cultures, and the hope that Rohr finds working with younger adults in the context of his ministry.
Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
Richard Rohr, Essential Teachings on Love
Thomas Merton, The Sign of Jonas
Mother Teresa, Come Be My Light
St. Francis of Assisi, In His Own Words: The Essential Writings
Kenneth Leech, Prayer and Prophecy
Richard Rohr, Falling Upward
Richard Rohr, The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See
Tilden Edwards, Living in the Presence
Silence and Poetry (Episode 18)
Apr 18, 2018
We love poetry — and we find that, of all literary forms, poetry seems to most quickly and assuredly bring the attentive reader to the threshold of silence.
"Poets all see silence as sacred ground," notes Kevin, "because it's from the silence the poems come." Together we muse on how poetry puts us in touch with our bodies, our intuition, and how the relationship between poetry and silence is, perhaps, just the same as the relationship between silence and sound that forms the foundation of music.
Much like musicians use notes, poets are the composers of words. They pay such attention to the space between. More then we do in typical writing, typical everyday language, they heed the mystery, they listen to the offbeat, and they use it. They know how to harness it, they know how to hold it open-handed... it's I would dare to say closer to silence then any other writing is. — Cassidy Hall
Because we are all "poetry geeks" pretty much just as much as we are "silence geeks," we joke that trying to create a podcast about poetry should take us 200 hours (or more). So this week's episode is just a check-in, a snapshot of where our journey with poetry has taken us at least for now.
From Mary Oliver's earthy reflection written in response to a cancer diagnosis, to Polish poet Wislawa Szymborska's playful consideration of how the experience of the mind or soul has an "embodied" or "natural" dimension, to the more ethereal or even transcendent perspective of Evelyn Underhill, the poems we consider in this episode dance between matter and spirit, between consciousness and mystery, between wonder and doubt and insight. And while none of these poems are specifically "about" silence, they all usher us into that place where word and silence kiss.
Silence is embodied, and yet silence is paradoxically also immaterial... To encounter silence implies materiality. — Carl McColman
Some of the poets, authors and resources mentioned in this episode:
Mary Oliver, Devotions
Thomas Merton, Collected Poems
Irene Zimmerman, Incarnation
Mary Oliver, Thirst
Mary Oliver, Blue Horses
John Keats, Complete Poems
Wisława Szymborska, Map: Collected and Last Poems
Karl Rahner, Foundations of Christian Faith
Thomas Aquinas, Selected Writings
Evelyn Underhill, Immanence
Albert Einstein, Ideas and Opinions
Maggie Ross, The Fire of Your Life
Patrick Shen (dir.), In Pursuit of Silence
Jan Richardson, Circle of Grace
John O'Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us
Willis Barnstone, tr., The Poems of Jesus Christ
Bonnie Thurston, Practicing Silence
May Sarton, Halfway to Silence
May Sarton, The Silence Now
Jane Hirshfield, Nine Gates
Edna St. Vincent Millay, Collected Poems
Rumi, The Essential Rumi
Silence isn't a fleeing from the world, it's a fleeing to the world. It's actually getting out of your ideas about the world, and actually showing up and being present in the world. — Kevin Johnson
Episode 18: Silence and Poetry
Hosted by: Carl McColman
With: Cassidy Hall, Kevin Johnson
Date Recorded: April 10, 2018
Notes on Silence (Episode 17)
Apr 12, 2018
This week we have our first "return" guest, as Patrick Shen joins us again to discuss the new book he co-wrote and co-edited with Cassidy Hall, Notes on Silence. Describing the book as an "entry point" into silence, Patrick and Cassidy share with Kevin and Carl how the book functions as a companion to their documentary film In Pursuit of Silence — and how it is simply a work of art in its own right.
Silence is always over-stated — and under-said. — Cassidy Hall
Notes on Silence features a selection of essays by both authors exploring silence, and their relationship to silence, from a variety of angles. The book also includes transcripts of interviews from a variety of persons who are featured in the film: theologians, psychologists, artists, educators, and others who have many interesting things to say about silence and the noise in our contemporary habitat. Since only a portion of each interview could be included in the film, these transcripts provide a wealth of information for anyone who wants to go deeper in his or her pursuit of silence.
A monk from New Mellerey Abbey, Father Alberic, said to me, 'Silence is a place of infinite possibility.' Silence is also a place of infinite language, because there is no proper language — there is no official way to box it in." — Cassidy Hall
Notes on Silence also contains a generous selection of beautiful (and deeply contemplative photos) taken by both Cassidy and Patrick. As each of them shares thoughts on one of their favorite photos in the book, they give insight into how image as well as words can testify to the beauty of silence, and of our capacity for wonder at, and in, silence.
Alas, we cannot know for certain, the cosmos demands that we surrender to its majesty, and we must take our seat at the feet of doubt. — Patrick Shen
Some of the resources and authors mentioned in this episode:
Cassidy Hall and Patrick Shen, Notes on Silence
Patrick Shen (director), In Pursuit of Silence
Jonatha Brooks, 10¢ Wings (includes the song "Landmine," quoted in this episode)
Richard Rohr, Essential Teachings on Love
The Desert Fathers and Mothers, Early Christian Wisdom Sayings
Laurie Anderson, Big Science (includes the song "From the Air," quoted in this episode)
Absolute silence would be a state of lifelessness. Our relationship with silence is always filtered through sound in some way, shape or form. — Carl McColman
Episode 17: Notes on Silence
Hosted by: Kevin Johnson
With: Cassidy Hall, Carl McColman
Guest: Patrick Shen
Date Recorded: March 29, 2018
Silence and Mysticism (Episode 16)
Apr 04, 2018
What role does silence play in mysticism?
That’s the question that launches our conversation this week. Episode 16 is inspired by the recent release of The Little Book of Christian Mysticism, by Carl McColman. But rather than just focus on the new book, we decided to broaden the conversation in this week’s episode to a more general reflection on how silence and mysticism belong together — and influence each other.
We launch our conversation by looking at the problems connected with merely trying to define the word “mysticism” (and related terms like “experience” and “spirituality”). From there we explore the connection between mysticism, mystery and silence.
“The Christian of the future will be a mystic — which is to say, a Christian who’s comfortable with silence, who’s comfortable with mystery, who’s comfortable with paradox and ambiguity, but who moves into all of that for the sake of love: the love of the Divine, and the love of one another.” — Carl McColman
Our conversation considers how mysticism is misunderstood by both the academic world the world of “pop” spirituality, how mysticism can make a difference even in the context of the institutional crisis in the church today, and how mysticism can be meaningful to the ordinary person today — leading to the radical (but ancient and orthodox) teaching of deification or divinization — what Saint Peter called being “partakers of the Divine nature.”
In our conversation, we explore who are some of Carl’s favorite mystics, how the women mystics of the Middle Ages need to be acknowledged as courageous heroines of the faith, and which mystics ought to be declared doctors of the church.
“Experience is the beginning of mysticism... People will say ‘I am drawn to mysticism because I want an experiential faith.’ I think that’s great! But let that be your starting point, and not your ending point. If the experience of God is the beginning of mysticism, then God’s encounter with you is the end of mysticism.” — Carl McColman
Some of the resources and authors mentioned in this episode:
Carl McColman, The Little Book of Christian Mysticism
Maggie Ross, Writing the Icon of the Heart
Pseudo-Dionysius, The Divine Names and the Mystical Theology
Carl McColman, The Big Book of Christian Mysticism
Carl McColman, Befriending Silence
Carl McColman, Answering the Contemplative Call
Jacques Derrida, A Derrida Reader
John of the Cross, Collected Works
Meister Eckhart, Selected Writings
Anonymous, The Cloud of Unknowing
Don Cupitt, Mysticism After Modernity
Karl Rahner, Concern for the Church
Evagrius Ponticus, The Praktikos & Chapters on Prayer
Julian of Norwich, The Showings of Julian of Norwich
Thérèse of Lisieux, The Story of a Soul
Mother Teresa, Come Be My Light
Teresa of Ávila, The Book of My Life
C. S. Lewis, The Four Loves
Thomas Merton, Dialogues with Silence
Thomas Keating, Open Mind, Open Heart: The Contemplative Dimension of the Gospel
Evelyn Underhill, Practical Mysticism
Caryll Houselander, Essential Writings
John Climacus, The Ladder of Divine Ascent
Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, The Divine Milieu
Dorothee Soelle, The Silent Cry: Mysticism and Resistance
Bernard of Clairvaux, Selected Works
George Maloney, Inward Stillness
Douglas Steere, ed., Quaker Spirituality
Augustine, The Confessions of Saint Augustine
The Catechism of the Catholic Church
Hildegard of Bingen, Selected Writings
Marguerite Porete, A Mirror of Simple Souls
Hadewijch, The Complete Works
Catherine of Siena, The Dialogue
Catherine of Genoa, Purgation and Purgatory; The Spiritual Dialogue
Mechthilde of Magdeburg, The Flowing Light of the Godhead
Gertrude the Great, Life and Revelations
Jeanne Guyon, Selected Writings
Grace Jantzen, Julian of Norwich
John Ruusbroec, The Spiritual Espousals and Other Works
Pope Benedict XVI, The Essential Writings and Speeches
Br. Elias Marechal, OCSO: The Silence of a Trappist (Episode 15)
Mar 28, 2018
Meet Brother Elias Marechal — Trappist monk, author, contemplative, storyteller, and a man of deep, resplendent silence.
Silence is always there — from the time we're born it's there, because it's in the image of God. — Br. Elias Marechal, OCSO
This episode — a conversation with Brother Elias — is our second Encountering Silence "Field Recording" in which one member of our team (in this case, Carl McColman) records a face-to-face interview with a person whose life is deeply engaged with silence.
Brother Elias Marechal, OCSO, with Carl McColman
Brother Elias is a monk of the Monastery of the Holy Spirit in Conyers, Georgia, at the edge of the Atlanta suburbs. Born in New Orleans, he is a lifelong spiritual seeker, who after a profound encounter with Divine Mystery while a freshman at Notre Dame, has devoted his life to meditation and to a spiritual practice both deeply rooted in Christian mysticism and yet profoundly embracing the wisdom of all the world's contemplative paths.
He is the author of two books: Dancing Madly Backwards: A Journey Into God (Crossroad Publishing, 1982) and Tears of an Innocent God: Conversations on Silence, Kindness and Prayer (Paulist Press, 2015). Of the latter book, Thomas Keating says it is "valuable and full of wisdom drawn from the author's remarkable experience of East and West." And Cynthia Bourgeault notes, "If you've never experienced authentic Trappist sapiential writing before, you're in for a treat!"
Tears of an Innocent God
Carl McColman has known Brother Elias since 2005, so their conversation carries the warm feel of two old friends. They sat down together at the Monastery guesthouse in November of 2017 to have a wide-ranging conversation about silence, writing, and prayer.
The image of God contains all of God's qualities and characteristics. The first one is silence. Second, kindness; the third, compassion; then listening with deep respect even to someone with an opposite view, and so forth. And the whole idea is that you're in this land of unlikeness and then you wake up in some way to the image of God. And you begin this journey, led by the Spirit, through the land of likeness in which, as you go along, all the various characteristics of God begin to unfold... in a simple, easy, and effortless way. — Br. Elias Marechal, OCSO
In the podcast Br. Elias discusses his first encounter with infused contemplation — at the grotto of Notre Dame University, when he was a freshman — and later discovering the complementary practice of acquired contemplation. He also reflects on a near death experience he experienced as a child, about his lifelong quest for purity of heart, on his experience of twenty-five years as a Trappist monk, how silence is an essential element in restoring the image and likeness of God within us, and much more.
He speaks about his early experience learning meditation and how the practice of meditation fostered his own relationship with silence — and how the Holy Spirit carries us through the unfolding of the image and likeness of God within us. He shares his understanding of the role that breath plays in prayer — particularly the Jesus Prayer — which allows us to let go "into the abyss of the kindness and compassion of God."
There is silence in heaven, because to communicate with one another, one "transfers" thoughts to another, and the other transfers thoughts to you — and this includes God. It's very very interesting. So silence is all-pervading in the heavenly kingdom. — Br. Elias Marechal, OCSO
Some of the resources and authors mentioned in this episode:
Elias Marechal, Tears of an Innocent God
Isaac of Stella, Sermons on the Christian Year
Eckhart Tolle, Stillness Speaks
Meister Eckhart, Selected Writings
Desert Mothers and Fathers, Early Christian Wisdom Sayings
Martin Laird, Into the Silent Land
Episode 15: The Silence of a Trappist: A Conversation with Br. Elias Marechal, OCSO
Hosted by: Carl McColman
Silence and Rhythm (Episode 14)
Mar 21, 2018
What is the relationship between silence and rhythm?
Silence as the offbeat: there is no rhythm without the silence. — Cassidy Hall
What are the ways that silence can create rhythm? How can silence enhance the notes of our day; how does silence strain out the noise in our life and directs the way we approach the everyday rhythms of our lives?
I always feel that poetry is like wild language, that it's language that actually hears the birds, and the wind, and the rippling of the pond, and then is just able to imitate that in human speech... poetry doesn't care if you notice the words, right? The poet is saying, the words are saying, "If you saw what I saw in my head, if my words were able to give you the vision, then we're there!" — Kevin Johnson
Our conversation dances between the beat of the heart and the cadence of the lungs; from there we reflect on poets and artists and how both rhythm and silence shape their work; the relationship between silence, rhythm, breath, and prayer; how sometimes the rhythm "falls out" because of self-consciousness (as opposed to the "deeper silence" where we simply relax into a silence akin to forgetting or selfless-consciousness), and how even the difficult times and moments of life might be indicative of simply a bigger rhythm at play.
In between every beat of the heart is a moment of silence. — Carl McColman
And of course, we talk about poetry, and the social ramifications of silence (i.e., how silence subverts our culture's aggressive materialism) —and much more!
Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
Richard Rohr, The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See
Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Flow
Maggie Ross, Silence Vol. 2
The Dalai Lama, Stages of Meditation
Meister Eckhart, Selected Writings
Pema Chödrön, Pure Meditation (the Audio Collection)
Mary Oliver, A Poetry Handbook
Carl McColman, Spirituality
Abbie Hoffman, Steal This Book
Guillermo del Toro (dir.), The Shape of Water
George Lucas (dir), Star Wars
Carl McColman, Befriending Silence
Thomas Merton, The Asian Journal
Thomas Merton, No Man is an Island
Patrick Shen (dir.), In Pursuit of Silence
John Cage, Silence
Jessica Mesman Griffith & Amy Andrews, Love and Salt
Monica Furlong, Contemplating Now
For the podcast featuring our friend and co-conspirator Jessica Mesman Griffith, click here: Things Not Seen Podcast #1806: The Communion of Haints
Episode 14: Silence and Rhythm
Hosted by: Kevin Johnson
With: Cassidy Hall and Carl McColman
Date Recorded: March 5, 2018
Fr. James Martin, SJ: Silence as the Bridge to Christ, the Self and the “Other” (Episode 13)
Mar 07, 2018
Fr. James Martin, SJ is the author of numerous books as well as an editor at America magazine. A Jesuit priest, Fr. James has emerged as one of the leading voices for Ignatian spirituality — and Catholicism in general — for our time. He has also become a lightning rod for some segments of the Catholic world — his gentle call for greater dialogue between the Catholic Church and LGBT Catholics has led to social media attacks along with calls for boycotts and cancellations of Fr. Martin's speaking engagements. Yet he himself remains undeterred, seeking to be a voice for hope and reconciliation in our troubled world.
"We've developed this culture of noise and distraction so much, that when people are alone with their thoughts or alone with silence, it's frightening." — James Martin, SJ
The Encountering Silence team met Fr. James Martin when he presided at a Mass for a Pax Romana meeting in New York last December that the three of us attended. Several weeks later the four of us gathered via Skype for a rich conversation exploring the connections between silence, Ignatian spirituality, prayer, spiritual direction, meditation, interspirituality and interfaith dialogue, and how writing (and revising) his book Building a Bridge has made a difference in his own ministry. Fr. James also muses on the essential connections between silence, relationship, and God — and how silence and prayer can help us to overcome fear of "the other."
Our phones — a friend of mine the other day called them "weapons of mass distraction." — James Martin, SJ
Incidentally, when we recorded this episode, the release date for the paperback edition of Building a Bridge was scheduled for March 13, 2018. Subsequently, the publisher moved up the release date one week — so the book is available now.
God enjoyed silence when God was on the earth with us.
— Fr. James Martin, SJ
The verse from Ecclesiastes that Carl mentions is Ecclesiastes 3:11: "God has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart..." (New International Version)
In terms of prayer and silence, I participate in it ultimately to be in a deeper relationship with God... I meet God in silence, and God speaks to me in silence... God always speaks to me in silence, I just need to be paying attention. — Fr. James Martin, SJ
Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
James Martin, Jesus: A Pilgrimage
James Martin, The Jesuit Guide to (Almost) Everything
James Martin, Building a Bridge (revised/expanded edition)
Ignatius of Loyola, Personal Writings
Martin Scorses (Dir.), Silence
James Martin, Becoming Who You Are
Bernard of Clairvaux, The Letters
Elizabeth A. Johnson, Quest for the Living God
Martin Buber, I and Thou
Henri Nouwen, Reaching Out
William Johnston, The Still Point
Thomas G. Hand, Always a Pilgrim
Hugo Enomiya-Lassalle, Living in the New Consciousness
Robert Kennedy, Zen Spirit, Christian Spirit
Francis X. Clooney, Comparative Theology: Deep Learning Across Religious Borders
Teresa of Ávila, The Book of My Life
John of the Cross, Collected Works
Thomas Merton, Essential Writings
Bede Griffiths, Essential Writings
Anthony De Mello, Selected Writings
Bobby Karle, Ignatian Yoga
Vatican Council II, Nostra Aetate
Richard Rohr, The Naked Now
Pope Francis, Laudato Si: On Care for Our Common Home
Pope John Paul II, In God's Hands
Lawrence Kohlberg, The Philosophy of Moral Development
Carol Gilligan, In a Different Voice
Maggie Ross, Writing the Icon of the Heart
Julian of Norwich, Showings
Joyce Rupp, Fragments of Your Ancient Name
Irene Zimmerman, Incarnation
Episode 13: Silence as the Bridge to Christ, the Self and the "Other": A Conversation with Father James Martin, SJ
Hosted by: Kevin Johnson
With: Carl McColman and Cassidy Hall
Guest: Father James Martin, SJ
Date Recorded: January 29, 2018
Silence as Refuge (Episode 12)
Feb 28, 2018
When we embrace silence as an alternative to conflict, are we just choosing to escape? Or can silence be a refuge, a temporary or even permanent shelter from the challenges of life? How can we tell the difference between silence-as-refuge and silence-as-escape?
Recognizing the ache that we meet, the ache of the whole world ... that we meet in our silences, right? It reminds us that there's space there for the whole world. — Cassidy Hall
Silence can be "toxic" when we refuse to speak to someone in the interest of resolving conflict or managing differences; likewise, silence can be toxic if we enter into it as a way of escaping conflict, or avoiding essential conversations or tasks that require our (verbal) attention.
But an alternative to the toxic quality of silence-as-escape is today's topic, silence-as-refuge: the recognition that even the most socially and politically engaged activist needs times of retreat, of quiet, of rejuvenation and reflection.
For me what's important is that the silence circulates even among the words... the word "silence" here is actually pointing to something else: a shift of attention, a refocusing. — Kevin Johnson
Our wide-ranging conversation explores how monasteries can function as "silence refuges," fostering an ability to love from a place of deep interiority; the relationship between silence and "perfection;" the classroom setting as a venue for silence as a pedagogical strategy; the relationship between loneliness and solitude (aloneness); and much more!
When we're taking refuge from something, that thing that we're taking refuge from doesn't just go away. It's learning to be patient with the messiness of life, or the brokenness of life, or the wounding of life. — Carl McColman
Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
Henry David Thoreau, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers
Desert Mothers and Fathers, Early Christian Wisdom Sayings
Henri Nouwen, Reaching Out
Patrick Shen, dir., In Pursuit of Silence
Maggie Ross, Silence: A User's Guide Volume 2
Pablo Picasso, Living in Art
Helen Lees, Silence in Schools
Carl Jung, The Portable Jung
Evagrius Ponticus, The Praktikos and Chapters on Prayer
Rumi, The Essential Rumi
Saint Benedict, The Rule of Saint Benedict
Silence as a refuge is necessary;
Silence as a refuge is listening;
Silence as a refuge is cleansing;
Silence as a refuge is the poetry of love.
Episode 12: Silence as Refuge
With: Kevin Johnson and Carl McColman
Date Recorded: November 27, 2017
Fr. Stephanos Pedrano, OSB: Silence in the Cloister (Episode 11)
Feb 21, 2018
This week marks the first Encountering Silence "Field Recording" in which one member of our team (in this case, Cassidy Hall) records a face-to-face interview with a person whose life is deeply engaged with silence. Today's episode features Cassidy in conversation with a Benedictine monk, Fr. Stephanos Pedrano, OSB.
Cassidy Hall and Fr. Stephanos Pedrano, OSB
Father Stephanos is a monk of Prince of Peace Abbey in Oceanside, California. The Encountering Silence team met Fr. Stephanos online, through a small social media group for artists, writers, and others who explore the intersection between art, spirituality, justice, and authenticity. In that context Fr. Stephanos is a voice of calm, deep spirituality, and good humor. Since he lives so close to Cassidy Hall, it seemed natural for her to pay him a visit, and during her time at the monastery, to record the interview which we are now sharing with you as our 11th episode. Even though this is the third episode to feature an interview on the podcast, it is actually the first interview to have been recorded (back in October of last year).
Fr. Stephanos tells his story, from his early yearning for liturgy and community, to discovering intentional silence through prayer, to eventually discerning his call to monastic life — which in turn took him to the threshold of silence. He reflects on how the wisdom of Saint Benedict has shaped the monastic experience of silence, and the relationship between silence and love. He goes on to talk about Mother Teresa — a modern saint who "suffered" the silence of God, whose voice fell into absence as she responded to her vocation to serve the poorest of the poor.
He explores some of the "silent wisdom" of the Rule of Saint Benedict, such as can be found in Benedict's twelve steps of humility — which on the surface seems so counterintuitive to the values of our age, but actually points to treasures such as the spiritual beauty of silencing one's own ego, in response to the love of God. Fr. Stephanos also explores why the word "contemplation" never appears in the Rule of Saint Benedict, and also talks about the heart of lectio divina, the deeply contemplative monastic practice of meditative reading of scripture, and how silence has given him insight into the dynamics of his own personality — and into love.
Monks are men of silence, but they are also men of many words... primarily the Psalms. — Fr. Stephanos Pedranos
Some of the resources and authors mentioned in this episode:
Thomas Merton, Essential Writings
The Liturgy of the Hours
The Rule of Saint Benedict
Mary Oliver, Devotions: The Selected Poems
Mother Teresa, Come Be My Light
Michael Casey, Sacred Reading: the Ancient Art of Lectio Divina
In the picture we see Cassidy and Fr. Stephanos enjoying a beer from the Almanac Beer Company, a California microbrewery.
Episode 10: Silence in the Cloister: A Conversation with Fr. Stephanos Pedrano, OSB
Hosted by: Cassidy Hall
Introduced by: Kevin Johnson
Guest: Fr. Stephanos Pedrano, OSB
Date Recorded: October 25, 2017
Valentines Day & Ash Wednesday — Silence & Paradox (Episode 10)
Feb 14, 2018
For this episode, we felt drawn to reflect on a couple of "liturgical paradoxes" coming up now and in April: that the Christian holy day of Ash Wednesday corresponds to Valentine's Day; and that Easter Sunday falls on All Fools' Day, April 1.
Valentine's Day originated as a Christian memorial (for Saint Valentine), but in its secularized form it is a day for celebrating romantic love — complete with flowers, a nice dinner out, and of course, plenty of chocolate. But this flies in the face of the meaning and observance of Ash Wednesday — as the first day of the penitential season of Lent, Ash Wednesday is a solemn occasion for reflecting on our mortality ("remember that you are dust"), our sinfulness or woundedness, and — at least in some traditions — is a day for fasting — hardly conducive to indulging in sweets!
Of course, even without the religious overlay, Valentine's Day can be paradoxical even on its own — as a day of sorrow for those who are lonely, or bereaved, or even navigating a relationship where love is absent.
How do we hold these paradoxes together? Could silence be a key to finding a way to honor both the pleasures of love and the invitation to self-forgetfulness?
"Paradox is paradoxical only to the linear, self-conscious mind," says Maggie Ross in her recently published book Silence: A User's Guide, Volume Two: Application. She goes on to consider an alternative to the limitations of the linear mind, which she calls "deep mind." "Deep mind is inclusive, what ancient writers refer to as the place of unity. Its ways of thinking are holistic, even holographic."
“The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.” — attributed to Niels Bohr
Put another way: perhaps paradox is itself a gift, a reminder that there's more to our minds (and our capacity to know and to understand) than the limitations imposed by language and linear thought. Perhaps when we try to make sense of how to hold a paradox like Valentine's Day falling on Ash Wednesday gently and authentically, we are invited into a place of deeper and higher knowing — and the portal to that place is not logic or language but simply silence.
Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
Jan Richardson, Circle of Grace: A Book of Blessings for the Seasons
Niels Bohr, Niels Bohr: His Life and Work
Nicholas of Cusa, Selected Spiritual Writings
Marvin C. Shaw, The Paradox of Intention
Lao Tzu, Tao te Ching
Parker Palmer, The Courage to Teach
Walt Whitman, "Song of Myself"
Henri Nouwen, Reaching Out
Leonard Cohen, "Anthem"
Pope Francis, The Hope of Lent
T. S. Eliot, "Ash Wednesday"
Carl McColman, The Big Book of Christian Mysticism
Another poem we didn't mention in the podcast, but that deserves a shout out here, is Walter Brueggemann's "Marked by Ashes" (from his book Prayers for a Privileged People). Also check out Thomas Merton's thoughts on paradox in The Sign of Jonas...
Like the prophet Jonas, whom God ordered to go to Nineveh, I found myself with an almost uncontrollable desire to go in the opposite direction. God pointed one way and all my "ideals" pointed in the other. It was when Jonas was traveling as fast as he could away from Nineveh, toward Tharsis, that he was thrown overboard, and swallowed by a whale who took him where God wanted him to go...But I feel that my own life is especially sealed with this great sign, which baptism and monastic profession and priestly ordination have burned into the roots of my being, because like Jonas himself I find myself traveling toward my destiny in the belly of a paradox. — Thomas Merton
Episode 10: Silence & Paradox: Ash Wednesday & Valentine's Day
Hosted by: Cassidy Hall
With: Kevin Johnson and Carl McColman
Date Recorded: February 9, 2018
Header Photo by Cathal Mac an Bheatha on Unsplash
Lerita Coleman Brown, PhD: Howard Thurman and the Inner Authority of Silence (Episode 9)
Feb 07, 2018
It's easy to see the connection between silence and spirituality — but how does silence support the quest for justice, for a world that moves beyond racism, sexism, or the other social barriers that divide us?
Anyone familiar with the wisdom and words of the great American preacher and writer, Howard Thurman, knows that the silence of contemplation and the silence that empowers the struggle for justice is, in fact, one silence.
God is always speaking, Spirit is always speaking to us. And we can only hear that in the silence. I think that’s a very difficult concept for people to understand because they think of hearing things as in words. But we can connect to things that are beyond words. — Lerita Coleman Brown, PhD
Lerita Coleman Brown, PhD
Our guest this week is Professor Lerita Coleman Brown, professor emerita of psychology at Agnes Scott College and self-described "devotee" of Howard Thurman. A natural contemplative who recognized the importance of silence while still a child, Professor Brown's remarkable life as a distinguished scholar, heart and kidney transplant recipient, and spiritual director, has been shaped not only by her longstanding commitment to a interior growth and the love of quiet, but also by her own experience as woman of color. Like Thurman, she recognizes that silence and contemplation are not only essential practices for a meaningful spiritual life, but are also profound gifts to a truly effective and life-affirming struggle for nonviolent, sustainable social change.
Our conversation explores a wide range of silence-related topics, from Professor Brown's childhood (encountering silence in the Santa Ana winds) to her first exploration of meditation in college, finding the value of silence in the midst of an academic career, the power of stillness even in the midst of a hospital stay, ultimately leading to her discovery of the towering genius of Howard Thurman, mentor to Martin Luther King, Jr. and one of the most important (if under-appreciated) contemplatives of the twentieth century.
I think that there are so many opportunities for silence that we often don’t take because we’re in our heads chattering about why we are uncomfortable about being in the situation we’re in. — Lerita Coleman Brown, PhD
An important chapter of Dr. Brown's story is her journey with heart disease which led to receiving a heart transplant in her early 40s. The process of her discernment to receive the transplant (along with a key career decision she had made years earlier) all point to how the power of silence literally saved her life.
Discovering Thurman while in formation as a spiritual director, Dr. Brown recognized one of the great (if under-appreciated) contemplatives of the twentieth century: grandson of a slave, child of the Jim Crow south, who went on to become a distinguished Baptist preacher, writer, speaker, and of course, inspiration to Dr. Martin Luther King Jr and other key figures in the Civil Rights movement. But at the heart of Thurman's genius was his deep and lasting commitment to silence, where he recognized we find eternity and, indeed, the presence of the living God.
But silence not only reveals God to us, but also reveals what Thurman calls the "inner authority" — that place within each of our hearts, where we discover who we are created to be, the strength and purpose that enables us to live the lives we are called to live — and, just possibly, to change the world in the meantime.
And I tell people all the time that ‘listen’ and ‘silent’ are the exact same letters just rearranged. So you cannot listen if you’re not silent, they’re just connected. — Lerita Coleman Brown, PhD
Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
Sherry Bryant-Johnson (ed.), Embodied Spirits: Stories of Spiritual Directors of Color
Cathering Meeks (ed.), Living Into God’s Dream: Dismantling Racism in America
Therese Taylor-Stinson (ed.),
Silence in Conflict (Episode 8)
Jan 31, 2018
What role does silence play in human conflicts? This question recognizes that silence may have a positive role to play — in helping to prevent or resolve conflicts — but that it could also have a negative role to play, as one one or more parties to a conflict use silence as a "weapon" to prevent reconciliation.
“When silence is done 'right,' silence can disarm us. Emotionally, physically, disarm us. It strips us of our ego. It takes us to that sacred center and allows us to try to learn how to love.” — Cassidy Hall
This week Kevin, Cassidy and Carl reflect on how we have experienced silence in conflict, in both creative and challenging ways.
From the old activist slogan "Silence = Death" to Audre Lorde's challenging declaration "your silence will not protect you," we examine how conflict reveals the different ways that we think about, or talk about, or use silence, especially when engaged in a struggle with another person or group.
“If the silence is being used to punish… then that’s not really silence in the way I talk about encounter or beholding, that’s actually noise. Using silence as a word, as a ‘No’ to someone as opposed to the other silence which is an absolute ‘Yes.’”— Kevin Michael Johnson
Should there be two words for silence? Is the "silence" that dominates or obstructs reconciliation really a type of psychic or spiritual "noise"?
We look at how silence can sometimes provide a "buffer" in the midst of an escalating family conflict, or how extreme emotions seem to propel us to a place of silence — where, by grace, we might regain our center and thereby begin the process of reconciliation, or at least recognize that beneath the feelings of conflict (anger, and rage) might lurk even more unsettling feelings such as fear.
“Silence is a democratic material. It allows everybody to have equal platform and equal voice, because if nobody’s talking, nobody is dominating.” — Helen Lees
What is the relationship between silence and listening? Can silence invite us into a place where, separated by conflict, we can learn to be together again? If politics is about power, how does silence invite us into vulnerability? What is the relationship between silence and the stories we tell, to foster relationship and reconciliation? These, and other questions, shape our conversation and exploration in this episode.
“Silence has something really creative to offer into a conflict situation. Whether it’s creating the space to listen, creating the space to cool-down or calm down, creating the space where we can invite all parties into a vulnerability.” — Carl McColman
Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
Audre Lorde, Your Silence Will Not Protect You
Patrick Shen (dir.), In Pursuit of Silence
Maggie Ross, Silence, Volume II: Application
Martin Laird, Into the Silent Land
Helen Lees, Silence in Schools
Nelson Mandela, Long Walk to Freedom
Episode 8: Silence in Conflict
Hosted by: Carl McColman
With: Cassidy Hall and Kevin Johnson
Date Recorded: November 14, 2017
“If you do not understand my silence, you will not understand my words.” — Anonymous
Patrick Shen: Creating in Silence (Episode 7)
Jan 24, 2018
With this episode, Encountering Silence features our first conversation with a special guest — Patrick Shen, the director of the luminous and thought-provoking documentary film In Pursuit of Silence, which he describes as "a meditative exploration of our relationship with silence and the impact of noise on our lives."
Incidentally, the three hosts of Encountering Silence first met each other through Maggie Ross as a result of her being interviewed for this film, so it's fair to say that the film is the raison d'être for this podcast.
I'm just not that interested in making films anymore that add more to the noise. I'm interested in making films that point to this realm beyond the words, beyond the imagery. — Patrick Shen
Patrick shares with us how he came to be inspired to create his movie, the unlikely role that heavy metal music played in his early life (helping push him to an appreciation of silence!), to the "existential curiosity" that propelled his creativity as a filmmaker.
Our conversation explores the relationship between silence and death, the tension between the spirituality of the creative search and the work the creative process itself; how his relationship with silence is changing the way he works, and much more.
We all get this idea that silence is this magical sort of space, this magical material; and we want it to be infused in our daily life, we want it to be infused with every breath that we take and every moment of our day, and so I've become really fascinated with this idea of work evolving from that place, rather than the work imitating or being a representation of that engagement. — Patrick Shen
Patrick Shen's award-winning films, including Flight from Death: The Quest for Immortality, The Philosopher Kings, and La Source, have been screened at over a hundred and twenty film festivals across the globe and broadcast in over twenty-five territories. He was the recipient of the 2009 Emerging Cinematic Vision Award from Camden International Film Festival. Since 2012 Patrick has been lecturing and teaching filmmaking workshops all over the globe as a film envoy for the U.S. State Department and the USC School of Cinematic Arts for their American Film Showcase. His latest film In Pursuit of Silence premiered to sold-out audiences in November 2015 at the Copenhagen International Film Festival. A companion book to the film, Notes from Silence, will be released in February 2018.
Find Patrick Shen online at www.patrickshen.com or
www.transcendentalmedia.com.
A lot of us when we step into silence, at least initially, find our narratives or identity stripped away, and it's a lot like a little death of sorts, and it's terrifying. — Patrick Shen
Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
Patrick Shen, dir., Flight from Death: The Quest for Immortality
Patrick Shen, dir., The Philosopher Kings
Patrick Shen, dir., La Source
Patrick Shen, dir., In Pursuit of Silence
Philip Gröning, dir., Into Great Silence
John Cage, Silence: Lectures and Writings
Nathaniel Dorsky, Devotional Cinema
Megadeath, Greatest Hits
Metallica, Metallica
Ernest Becker, The Denial of Death
Kathleen Dowling Singh, The Grace in Dying
Patrick Shen and Cassidy Hall, Notes from Silence
Max Picard, The World of Silence
Catherine Doherty, Poustinia
Henry David Thoreau, Walden and Other Writings
Monica Furlong, Contemplating Now
Rumi, The Essential Rumi
Maggie Ross, Writing the Icon of the Heart
Pico Iyer, The Art of Stillness
Episode 7: Creating in Silence: A Conversation with Patrick Shen
Hosted by: Cassidy Hall
With: Carl McColman and Kevin Johnson
Guest: Patrick Shen
Date Recorded: January 12, 2018
IN PURSUIT OF SILENCE Trailer from Cinema Guild on Vimeo.
Our Silence Heroes (Episode 6)
Jan 17, 2018
Who are your "silence heroes" — persons, living or dead, famous or obscure, who inspired or mentored or otherwise encouraged your encounter, and/or ongoing relationship, with silence? This is the question that the three co-hosts of this podcast explore in this episode. Cassidy, Carl and Kevin talk about the spiritual leaders, mystics, poets, writers, and other key figures who have helped us to "meet" silence more fully in our lives.
When you really meet silence, when you really encounter silence, it reminds you that you're good enough, as is — whatever you're doing, whoever you are, it reminds you that you're good enough, because it is a place of love, it is a place of self-encounter, it is a place of the encounter of the Divine, of God. — Cassidy Hall
We talk about how our silence heroes inspire us — how they encourage us to love, to embrace nature, to write and enjoy poetry, to be sacred nonconformists, to preserve stillness, teach us how to talk about silence (or how to be silent with silence!), give us both theoretical and practical approaches to silence — all the while using their lyrical and poetic voices to encourage us to be, likewise, the "poets of our own lives" — lives in which silence "allows our own selves to actually come forward and speak."
We are all poets of our own lives and silence allows our own selves to actually come forward and speak. — Kevin Johnson
Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
Thomas Merton, Day of a Stranger
Mary Oliver, Devotions: The Selected Poems
Sara Maitland, A Book of Silence
Martin Laird, Into the Silent Land
Elias Marechal, Tears of an Innocent God
Maggie Ross, Silence, Volume 1: Process
Maggie Ross, Silence, Volume 2: Application
Maggie Ross, Seasons of Death and Life: A Wilderness Memoir
Rowan Williams, Silence and Honey Cakes
Desert Fathers and Mothers, The Wisdom of the Desert (edited by Thomas Merton)
Thomas Merton, Love and Living
Walt Whitman, The Complete Poems
Paul Tillich, The Courage to Be
Thomas Merton, Raids on the Unspeakable
Thomas Merton, The Literary Essays of Thomas Merton
J. K. Rowling, The Harry Potter Collection
At one point Carl mentions Martin Thornton when he's actually talking about Martin Laird, so in all fairness to his Freudian slip, here's a book worth reading from that author:
Martin Thornton, Christian Proficiency
Silence is the tomb of Christ — a place of infinite possibility.
— A Monk of New Melleray Abbey
Kevin Johnson is a university professor, writer, speaker, and retreat leader based in Connecticut.
Cassidy Hall is a writer, photographer, and filmmaker based in Los Angeles.
Carl McColman is an author, catechist, and retreat leader based in Atlanta.
For language to be sane, it needs to be suffused with silence; and for silence to be accessible, it needs to be held in language... to be a human being who wishes to enter deeply into the cave of silence, our sherpa will be language. — Carl McColman
Episode 6: Our Silence Heroes
Hosted by: Kevin Johnson
With: Cassidy Hall and Carl McColman
Date Recorded: November 13, 2017
Encountering Silence in Relationships (Episode 5)
Jan 10, 2018
What does it mean to encounter silence in the midst of our most intimate relationships? Unless you are an absolute hermit, other people factor in your life. From children and spouses, to nephews and neighbors, co-workers and companions, to be human is to be in relationship — and sometimes, relationships can be noisy places indeed.
In this episode we explore some paradoxical approaches to silence — for example, Kevin speaks eloquently of finding the silence even in the midst of a baby's cry. He goes on to compare the challenges of balancing one's own needs with the needs of loved ones to the dance of attention in a meditation practice — between awareness of silence and the inevitable irruption of distracting thoughts.
Keep the silence and stillness within. Because it's always there, right? It's always there. If you've met it once, if you've met it twice, if you've met it every day of your life, you know it's there, it's within. — Cassidy Hall
But there's also the "inner relationship" — how we relate to our own self. Carl muses on how sometimes anxiety and depression come to call — and can make it challenging to remember that silence is always, already there.
In all our relationships — whether internal or external — silence calls us out of a place of self-focus into a place where we can be concerned with loving others — or welcoming whatever arises in the context of our lives. Silence teaches us that silence is always present — even in the midst of a baby's cry, even in the midst of rage or fear or bitter loneliness.
We look at the monastic notion of the "school of love," considering how silence is actually an instructor in the school of love — teaching us how to love others, as well as to love ourselves. But we also acknowledge that in relationships silence can sometimes be a way of avoiding intimacy — where "unheld conversations" can signify a kind of external silence which masks interior noise. Again, though, silence can be the doorway through which we move to find reconciliation or greater intimacy — even if it means moving through "the fire" of conflict or challenging conversations.
Our conversation includes some thoughts on the sometimes contentious relationship between silence and language, and how poetry represents a way to bridge that particular gap.
What is a poem? A poem is just a useless spray of language. And yet, in that useless spray of language we find beauty, we find meaning, we find insight, we find connection, we find ourselves.— Carl McColman
Among the resources and authors we mention in this episode were poems by Rumi and Thomas Merton, and mention of the work of Cynthia Bourgeault as well as the spirituality of the desert fathers and mothers, particularly in regard to the deadly or afflictive thoughts. The following resources can help you learn more:
Coleman Barks, tr., The Essential Rumi (includes "The Guest House")
Cynthia Bourgeault, Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening
Thomas Merton's poem "Love Winter When the Plant Said Nothing" can be found in several books, including:
Collected Poems of Thomas Merton
In the Dark Before Dawn
Emblems of a Season of Fury
To learn more about the desert tradition of non-attachment to afflictive thoughts:
Mary Margaret Funk, Thoughts Matter
John Cassian, Conferences
Evagrius Ponticus, The Praktikos and Chapters on Prayer
What's the connection between words and silence is that they're so interpenetrated that you need to have them both. You actually can speak yourself into the silence... The only problem with words is that we get trapped in them. — Kevin Johnson
Kevin Johnson is a university professor, writer, speaker, and retreat leader based in Connecticut.
Cassidy Hall is a writer, photographer, and filmmaker based in Los Angeles.
Carl McColman is an author, catechist, and retreat leader based in Atlanta.
Plan?!? What plan?
Episode 5: Encountering Silence in Relationships
Encountering Silence as Adults (Episode 4)
Jan 03, 2018
Continuing the conversation that began with Episodes 1 and 2, we now turn to the question of how our relationship to silence can evolve over time.
We take a closer look at how encountering silence has nurtured our faith in God — and how monasteries, churches, museums, the wilderness, and even a documentary film has played a role in our lives as each of us has "pursued" silence (or, perhaps we should say, how silence has pursued us).
We explore how silence has been a teacher to each of us, teaching us the ways of silence, teaching us to simply "let silence be" and approach it in a spirit of humility and openness. We discuss the limitations of academic scholarship (at least in terms of relating to silence), the challenge of moving beyond dualisting thinking when relating to silence, and how essential art and poetry have been to us when it comes to our evolving relationship with silence — and our shared recognition that there is a deep intimacy between silence and beauty. We also look at silence as the center around which aesthetics, theology, and liturgy all revolve — each points back to the silence, which in turn "hosts" each of these ways of human knowing and expression.
Silence for me has always been wrapped up with the question of the Divine. — Kevin Johnson
It's so interesting to engage with a material that is not a material. It's like clothing a bodiless body. you can't do it, but we're forever trying. That's why this keeps constantly pointing me back to God because it's another aspect of my life that certainty always fails me. It's in the unknowing that I know. It's in my extreme amount of doubt that my faith is. It's the tension pieces, the paradox pieces. — Cassidy Hall
Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
Patrick Shen (director), In Pursuit of Silence (Documentary Film)
Tilden Edwards, Embracing the Call to Spiritual Depth
Gerald G. May, Will and Spirit: A Contemplative Psychology
Martin Laird, Into the Silent Land: A Guide to the Christian Practice of Contemplation
Elias Marechal, Tears of An Innocent God: Conversations on Silence, Kindness and Prayer
Alex Lu, Soundtrack for In Pursuit of Silence
Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters of Rainer Maria Rilke, 1892-1910
Hans Urs Von Balthazar, The Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetics
Karl Rahner, Encounters with Silence
Bernard McGinn, ed., The Essential Writings of Christian Mysticism
Evagrius Ponticus, The Praktikos & Chapters on Prayer
Christian Bobin, The Eighth Day: Selected Writings
Carl quotes Acts 17:28: "In Him we live and move and have our being" — which comes from a sermon of Saint Paul, who in turn is quoting the pagan poet Epimenides.
The words are printed on the page just as the space between the ink is the page. It's all the page. There is a real presence of silence in the most ear-splitting noise. — Carl McColman
Kevin Johnson is a university professor, writer, speaker, and retreat leader based in Connecticut.
Cassidy Hall is a writer, photographer, and filmmaker based in Los Angeles.
Carl McColman is an author, catechist, and retreat leader based in Atlanta.
Episode 4: Encountering Silence As Adults
Hosted by: Carl McColman
With: Cassidy Hall and Kevin Johnson
Date Recorded: October 23, 2017
Encountering Silence During the Holidays (Episode 3)
Dec 22, 2017
The Holiday Season can be joyful and/or stressful, which means this is a time when silence remains as important as ever. Join us for this special episode where Cassidy, Kevin and Carl talk about how we nurture a contemplative dimension to our holiday experience, without getting moralistic or legalistic about silence, but also retaining a sense of just how vital silence is to us at this time of the year.
In this episode, we explore how silence is devalued in our culture (and why we need to resist that cultural prejudice), the relationship between silence and intentionality, how "letting go" is a portal into silence, the danger of "the materialism of information," how the spiritual concept of incarnation takes us outside of our comfort zone, how the body is our best friend for surviving the holidays, and much more.
When we name silence, we lose it... As soon as we touch the word urgency to the lips of silence, we lose a sincere intimacy. So how do we maintain silence as urgent and important in our lives without making it legalistic, or precisely what it isn't? — Cassidy Hall
Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
Marvin C. Shaw, The Paradox of Intention
Thomas Merton, Literary Essays
Ernest Wood, A Zen Dictionary
Lao-Tzu, Tao Te Ching
Caryll Houselander, The Reed of God
Pico Iyer, The Art of Stillness
Gerald May, Will and Spirit: A Contemplative Psychology
Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back
Thomas Keating, Open Mind, Open Heart: The Contemplative Dimension of the Gospel
Meister Eckhart, The Complete Mystical Works
The Zen Proverb ("Quit Trying; Quit Trying Not to Try; Quit Quitting") shows up in:
Carl McColman, Answering the Contemplative Call
And one more book that this episode makes us think of:
David Bentley Hart, The Experience of God: Being, Consciousness, Bliss
You actually have to stop trying... if you attempt to be silent, if you make it an urgent goal, well then you never get there, silence never actually comes, there has to be kind of a letting go. — Kevin Johnson
Kevin Johnson is a university professor, writer, speaker, and retreat leader based in Connecticut.
Cassidy Hall is a writer, photographer, and filmmaker based in Los Angeles.
Carl McColman is an author, catechist, and retreat leader based in Atlanta.
Episode 3: Encountering Silence During the Holidays
Hosted by: Cassidy Hall
With: Kevin Johnson and Carl McColman
Date Recorded: December 19, 2017
Note: our next episode will be released on or about January 3, 2018. In the meantime, we wish you a merry Christmas (or the joyful observance of the holiday of your tradition) and a very happy new year.
Encountering Silence In Adolescence (Episode 2)
Dec 20, 2017
How do we encounter silence in our teen years? Alone, or with others? In the woods, or at a church? With a sense of ecstasy, or perhaps even a healthy dose of "adolescent angst"?
In this episode we continue the conversation about "meeting" silence in the days of our youth, this week focusing on our adolescence. Like in the previous episode, such encounters carry a variety of meanings and invitations into deeper reflection, including:
The relationship between silence, nature, solitude, and spirit (Spirit);
How silence can emerge out of even a noisy time in one's life;
How silence transcends religion and spirituality to be a universal gift;
How silence can meet us even in unintended ways and settings;
The surprising way silence comes to us in mystical ways — and how even the most exalted mystical "experience" seems to carry its own challenges or difficulties;
Pondering the relationship between silence and questions.
I was immediately filled with questions, and I was immediately filled with, 'Why? What did I just do? Why did I do it?' and looking back upon that, to me, that was God in that experience — the questions; because I've always been a curious person, because God was in that mystery and the silence and the loneliness of that moment. — Cassidy Hall
Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
Augustine, The Confessions of Saint Augustine
Carl McColman, The Aspiring Mystic: Practical Steps for Spiritual Seekers
Some of the albums Carl loved as a teenager include:
Elton John, Greatest Hits
Emerson Lake & Palmer, Self-Titled
Genesis, Foxtrot
Renaissance, Ashes Are Burning
Yes, Tales From Topographic Oceans
And while we didn't mention them in this episode, our favorite monastic author and favorite documentary on silence always deserve a shout out:
Thomas Merton, Dialogues with Silence
Patrick Shen (director), In Pursuit of Silence
It's beyond words, there's no way to describe this, but it really did make me feel that the world was a lot weirder than I thought it was, for the very first time, and I realized that my categories didn't make sense... — Kevin Johnson
Photo by Cassidy Hall
Kevin Johnson is a university professor, writer, speaker, and retreat leader based in Connecticut.
Cassidy Hall is a writer, photographer, and filmmaker based in Los Angeles.
Carl McColman is an author, catechist, and retreat leader based in Atlanta.
Episode 2: Encountering Silence In Adolescence
Hosted by: Kevin Johnson
With: Cassidy Hall and Carl McColman
Date Recorded: October 10, 2017
Encountering Silence in Childhood (Episode 1)
Dec 13, 2017
What do you remember about encountering silence in your childhood?
In this episode we explore our first memories of "meeting" silence in childhood, moments in time where, whether in solitude or with others, whether near or far from home, whether shaped by emotional confusion or a sense of simply being present, something graced and mysterious intruded upon our awareness and brought us face to face, not only with the beauty of silence, but also with the mystery of our own deepest and truest selves.
From a lakeside in Virginia, to a Connecticut playground, to a prairie in Iowa, each of our memories involves being out-of-doors. And each of us struggles to put into words what ultimately seems to remain elusive, beyond what language can contain.
I all of a sudden felt extremely safe, completely at home, and there was a sense of I was much bigger than my body, that like somehow I was more than what I thought I was, and... I guess the word is 'presence,' a sense of that I just felt very — that there was something, there was more there than me.
— Kevin Johnson
As our conversation weaves in and around our shared, remembered moments of encounter, we talk about what it means to be present in our bodies, a sense of timelessness or eternity that sometimes seems to accompany the encounter with silence, and the dance of deep feeling, "not-knowing," and longing that shaped our most profound moments of silence — even at a very early age.
Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:
e. e. cummings, "A Poet's Advice to Students" in A Miscellany (Revised)
The Desert Fathers and Mothers: Early Christian Wisdom Sayings
Helen Lees, Silence in Schools
C. S. Lewis, "Afterward' in The Pilgrim's Regress
Gerald May, Addiction and Grace
Gerald May, Will and Spirit: A Contemplative Psychology
Patrick Shen (director), In Pursuit of Silence documentary film
Margery (aka "Carl's cat")
Kevin Johnson is a university professor, writer, speaker, and retreat leader based in Connecticut.
Cassidy Hall is a writer, photographer, and filmmaker based in Los Angeles.
Carl McColman is an author, catechist, and retreat leader based in Atlanta.
Episode 1: Encountering Silence in Childhood
Hosted by: Cassidy Hall
With: Carl McColman and Kevin Johnson
Date Recorded: October 2, 2017
Pilot Episode: Meet the Hosts of Encountering Silence
Dec 06, 2017
Meet Kevin Johnson, Cassidy Hall, and Carl McColman. We are the hosts and co-creators of Encountering Silence.
This podcast emerged from our friendship, the friendship of three people with a shared interest in the many important ways silence makes a difference our lives — looking at silence in terms of spirituality, of health, of art and aesthetics, of psychology and wisdom. Silence matters, and yet it is a difficult topic to talk about, let alone to deeply and truly understand.
We realize that "talking about silence" is paradoxical, and yet we think it's also vital, especially given how increasingly noisy our society is. We hope that this pilot episode represents the first few words in an ongoing conversation about what silence is, why silence matters, and how we can all learn to encounter silence more truly and deeply.
Some of the resources we mention in this episode:
Martin Buber, I and Thou
Audre Lorde, Your Silence Will Not Protect You
Jean-Luc Marion, God Without Being
Thomas Merton, Selected Essays
Maggie Ross, Silence: A User's Guide, Volume 2: Application
Patrick Shen (director), In Pursuit of Silence documentary film
Our dream for this podcast is to make connections — with people everywhere who love silence, who seek more silence in our lives, who wish to understand and appreciate more fully and be able to speak of the gift of silence in our lives more beautifully. We hope you will connect with us, not only by subscribing to the podcast through iTunes or Google Play, but also by connecting with us via our Facebook Page or Twitter. Thank you.
Kevin Johnson is a university professor, writer, speaker, and retreat leader based on the Connecticut shoreline.
Cassidy Hall is a writer, photographer, and filmmaker based in Los Angeles.
Carl McColman is a contemplative author, speaker, retreat leader, and spiritual companion based in Atlanta.
Carl, Cassidy, and Kevin (photo by Fran McColman)
Episode 0: Pilot Episode
Hosted by: Carl McColman
With: Cassidy Hall and Kevin Johnson
Date Recorded: September 25, 2017
“Coming Soon” Teaser Trailer
Nov 09, 2017
Coming Soon: A Podcast on All Things Silence.
This little snippet of audio bliss comes from the very first day that the Encountering Silence team — Cassidy Hall, Kevin Johnson, and Carl McColman — actually recorded what would become our "pilot episode" (scheduled to be released next month, December 2017). Here we are still finding our way around our respective microphones, and discovering our collective "voice" as the hosts of our new podcast. This may not tell you a lot about the content of our podcast — for that, let's just say if it has something to do with silence, sooner or later we hope to explore it — but this will, we hope, give you a glimpse into our process — as co-explorers of silence, and perhaps even more important, as friends.
What can we say about our podcast? We are drawn to the mystery and spirituality of silence. We believe silence is beautiful, is peaceful, is conducive (and indeed essential) to both mental and physical health, and has an important role to play in our individual and communal search for meaning, for identity, for relationship, and even for love. We are all Christians (2 Catholics and 1 Episcopalian), so we also believe that silence helps us to respond to God, and indeed that silence is a gift from God. But this podcast is not just a "Christian" or even "religious" podcast: we are all drawn to interfaith dialogue and interspirituality, to mysticism and contemplation, to art and poetry, to the silence of the forest and of the library, the silence of the cathedral and the desert, the silence of a winter night and a sleeping child. Silence touches our lives in so many ways, and yet we live in a culture that has seemed to banish silence from so many corners of our life. What does that mean? And how will the increasing noisiness of our world impact our lives: our sense of serenity, our ability to listen to one another, our sense of purpose and identity and self-worth? So many questions, so many areas for exploration and discovery. If any of this resonates with you, we hope that you will join us — let us be together, for we all are Encountering Silence.