A post throughout each week of the month, offering quotes and resources linked to one contemporary author who writes about silence and its role as a spiritual discipline.
In this series, some posts use short quotations but offer links to associated resources in the text below the image-backed quote. In other weeks, the short, image-backed quote are taken from a more extensive quotation from the month's author, given below the image. And in the last week of the month there are questions to encourage reflection on the month's quotations.

Quotes for each week of April will appear below in ascending date order.
Fr. Laurence Freeman, our author for April, is a Benedictine monk from the Congregation of Monte Oliveto Maggiore, now living at The Bonneveaux Centre for Peace in France. He is renowned internationally as a retreat leader, speaker and the author of numerous books about Christian Meditation, particularly as related to the mantra practice taught by the World Community for Christian Meditation (WCCM), of which he is the Director.
Monday 3rd April, 2023

Laurence Freeman, First Sight: The Experience of Faith ​(Continuum Books, 2011), 134.
Image: Aziz Acharki, Morocco, unsplash.com/@acharki95

​This short image-backed quote is from Laurence Freeman's First Sight: The Experience of Faith (Continuum Books, 2012), 134. You can read more about this book by clicking ​here.

Father Laurence Freeman, OSB, is a Roman Catholic priest and Benedictine monk. Born in England in 1951, he was educated by the Benedictines, studied English Literature at New College, Oxford, before working in banking, journalism and with the United nations in New York. In 1975 he joined Fr John Main at Ealing Abbey, London, to become part of a lay community exploring Christian meditation as a foundational contemplative practice within a Benedictine way of life. Two years later, Main and Freeman were invited to Canada by its Archbishop to establish an experimental community of monks and laypeople, again with the practice and teaching of Christian meditation at its core. 

Today, Fr Laurence is Director of the World Community for Christian Meditation (WCCM), the global, inclusive contemplative community that emerged from their work and which Fr Laurence continued to expand in the years after John Main's death in 1982. WCCM itself was established in London in 1991 under Fr Laurence's leadership. WCCM's work and international reach has expanded considerably in recent decades. It has a significant online presence and programme, here, with many opportunities to engage in its extensive teaching events and courses, some of which are free. The WCCM+ site, here, carries numerous free-to-access videos of excellent teaching sessions by renowned teachers (the majority featuring Laurence Freeman but others by Revd Dr Sarah Bachelard, Prof Charles Taylor, Prof Bernard McGinn and the former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, etc) from the annual WCCM retreats and John Main Seminar series back to 2015. Most recently WCCM has launched its Academy for Contemplative Living, here - a two-year inter-disciplinary study programme in the context of contemplative practice, rooted in ecumenical, interfaith and inclusive values. The Meditatio Centre in London - WCCM's outreach organisation: see here - offers an ongoing programme of online events, many of which are often listed on the Events pages of the Seeds of Silence website, here. WCCM is also at the forefront of teaching and supporting meditation in schools - see its own website, here - and in fostering programmes for those engaged in Christian meditation as an 11th step in addiction recovery.

Laurence Freeman now spends much of his time at WCCM's Bonnevaux, its International Centre for Peace in France - see here - which hosts retreats throughout the year. In and amongst his leadership of WCCM, Fr Laurence has also found time to write more than a dozen books about meditation, contemplative living and Christian faith, all of which you can see here. 
Monday 10th April, 2023
Laurence Freeman, First Sight: The Experience of Faith ​(Continuum Books, 2011), 69.
​Image: Nathan Dumlao, Los Angeles, USA, unsplash.com/@nate_dumlao  

​​This short image-backed quote, above, is taken from the longer quotation, below, in Laurence Freeman's First Sight: The Experience of Faith (Continuum Books, 2011), 69-70. You can read more about this book by clicking here.

'Faith is the light of consciousness found in the heart. The price of the ticket into the heart is the loss of self. Meditation is the act of faith that leads us on the journey from the head to the heart. It is made as it is felt. It is made in the stillness from which action flows. It manifests in deep silence and in truthful speech. We feel it as we meditate because it is a separation preceding union [with God] and because every journey is a leaving as well as an arriving. The space between is paradox. Meditation is faith leading to a separation from the familiar world, a comfortably predictable and conventional world. In the daily practice we choose to step outside the ordinary routine for a short time – the TV news, checking email, shopping or managing things. The busyness of the mid planning, imagining, solving problems, wrestling with questions is suspended, just as we suspend our anxieties of the place of departure when we board a plane until we land to meet the problems at the point of arrival.
 
The teachers of the desert were people of few words. They described this faith journey, the essential nature of prayer, as the ‘laying aside of thoughts’. Freedom from thoughts is not necessarily the same as the total absence of thought but it is the meaning of silence. In the work of silence we engage with on the ‘journey of meditation’ the attachments and the compulsions which tie us to the point of departure are gradually undone in the heart. Through the work of a faithful practice they are gradually diluted and eventually evaporate.

You may not know in retrospect the exact point on the flight when you lost your fear; it just slipped away. There may be a phantom of it left but it has lost its power over you. As your heart dilates, fear dilutes. The light of the heart, the light of pure consciousness, the mid of Christ that we find in the heart illuminates everything, pervading our daily mind. Unfortunately it doesn’t give readymade answers to all the big questions or solve all daily problems but it gives something for which we become ever more grateful, the confidence of faith.​'
Monday 17th April, 2023
Laurence Freeman, First Sight: The Experience of Faith ​(Continuum Books, 2011), 130.
Image: Daniel Biber, Germany, 2018 Sony World Photography Awards, danielbiber.com 

​​​This short image-backed quote, above, is taken from the longer quotation, below, in Laurence Freeman's First Sight: The Experience of Faith (Continuum Books, 2011), 69-70. You can read more about this book by clicking here.

'Meditation begins and ends in faith. It expresses the unity of all in the spirit, as do indeed all sacred acts inspired by love or compassion. Meditation as we can testify creates community experienced in the deep silence of being together. What silence makes happen is the transformation of consciousness and the emergence of a catholic mind,* because catholic knows no boundaries and seeks to integrate all.
 
The modern world in crisis needs this catholic mind that exists in our deep nature, the universal consciousness. It is seeing with new eyes the primal and ultimate unity of humanity and our unity with the cosmos. The meaning of wholeness can not be measured against anything less that this unity. …
 
At the end, if any end exists, unity flowers in silence, the kind of unity we taste in meditation. Unity is self-repairing, boundless; there is no limit to it. As unity becomes more conscious we learn to live better with the contradictions, conflict and sufferings of the dualistic world made by the dualistic mind. We see this world in the experience of non-duality and its brokenness becomes and opportunity of grace to serve others, to heal, to love.'

* Here, 'catholic' as in all-embracing, universal, rather than as in 'Roman Catholic'.
Monday 24th April, 2023
Laurence Freeman, ​First Sight: The Experience of Faith ​(Contimuum Books, 2011), 134.
Image: Vladimir Kramer, unsplash.com/@vladimirkramer

This short image-backed quote, above, is taken from the longer quotation, below, in Laurence Freeman's First Sight: The Experience of Faith (Continuum Books, 2011), 134. You can read more about this book by clicking here.

​The last week of each month in the 'Quoting Silence: A month with ...' series offers some questions to help you reflect further on the month's quotations and images, and how they resonate with your own spiritual journey and relationship with God.

Before reflecting on this month's quotes and images, take time to re-ground yourself in your body.
Perhaps take a few slow breaths, feel your feet on the floor and be aware of how your body feels in this moment.

​1) Read back over the this month's quotes and spend time looking at their associated images. As you do so, note a phrase or image that draws your attention. If this is a phrase, you might like to write this out in a journal or on a piece of paper where you will see it regularly. Consider reading aloud several times what you have written to help the words sink more deeply into your heart. If an image resonates with you, let your gaze rest lightly on it for a couple of minutes, allowing it to speak to your heart. Consider using it as a screensaver for a while, or perhaps print it out and place it somewhere that you will see it often.

2) What emerges as you sit with the phrase or image that attracted your attention? Does a new insight or a question, emotion or sensation arise? Take some time to write down and ponder on whatever you notice. 

3) Where can you see hope in the midst of what is emerging in you, for yourself, your neighbour, your community, or the planet? How might this impact your daily life and those with whom you share it? 
​
4) In the days and weeks to come, how can you stay open to what you have discovered from your reflections?

Take some time to give thanks for the hope that you have found in this month's quotes and images.​
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