The first week of each month has a short, image-backed quote with links to associated resources in the text below it. In other weeks, the short quote is taken from a longer one by the month's author, found below the image. The last week of the month has a short quote and questions to encourage reflection on all the month's quotations and images.
Alexander Ryrie, our author for August, is a priest in the Scottish Episcopal Church who, having encountered the writings of the Desert Mothers and Fathers, and the Orthodox Church, developed a deep love and understanding of silence-based prayer.
Guided Meditation for all quotes:
For a 5 minute audio guided meditation to use with each week's quote, click the play button on the image. To pause, and restart, click in the same place. To see the image full screen as you listen, click the expand screen icon in the corner. |
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Lectio Divina with longer quotes:
For an audio guided Lectio Divina to use with this week's longer quote, click the play button on the image. Allow 10-15 minutes for this practice. To pause, and restart, click in the same place. For a text version of the Lectio Divina meditation, click the button. |
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Monday 7th August, 2023
Alexander Ryrie, Wonderful Exchange: An Exploration of Silent Prayer (Paulist Press, 2005), 6.
Image: Johnny Cohen, unsplash.com/jonecohen
This short image-backed quote is from Alexander Ryrie's Wonderful Exchange: An Exploration of Silent Prayer (Paulist Press, 2003), 6. To read more about this book, click here.
Other than his books, it has not been easy to uncover details about this month's author, Alexander Ryrie, who lives in Scotland and from where he seems to originate. Ryrie's interest in history and genealogy are evident in a 2008 record of his constructing a list of all those from Caithness after 1693 who shared their surname, and his efforts in this regard, along with his wife Isobel, suggest that he may have been born in this area. It has not been possible to find information about 'Sandy', as he is known, prior to 1968. At this time he was appointed as the first full-time Industrial Chaplain to the Lanarkshire steel industry, where he felt that one of his main challenges was to make the Bible relevant. In this post, Ryrie initiated monthly 'meeting points' to encourage meaningful dialogue between the steelmen and their managers, displaying the link often observed between those committed to a contemplative spirituality and engagement in action for social justice that is still supported today by organisations such as the Centre for Action and Contemplation (CAC) and its founder, Richard Rohr: see here. For a lengthy but fascinating academic paper on the Industrial Mission of the Scottish churches between 1960 and 1980 that provided this information on Sandy Ryrie, see here.
Sandy Ryrie became Rector of St John the Evangelist, an Episcopal Church in Jedburg (another former Rector was John Habgood, who became well-known as Archbishop of York in the mid-1980s-90s). Jedburgh is one of the small market towns that form the main conurbations in the Scottish Borders. Along with Melrose and Kelso, it is known for its beautiful monastic ruins. For an impressive areal image of Jedburgh Abbey, see here. After retiring from this post in 1995, Ryrie devoted much time to writing about silence and contemplative spirituality. His first published pamphlet was Prayer of the Heart & Prayer of the Night (Fairacres, 1995) - see here - exploring the idea of the Orthodox St Theophan that in prayer we should 'stand with the mind in the heart'. This was followed by Silent Waiting: The Biblical Roots of Contemplative Spirituality (1999) - see here - and then by the book used for this month's quotes, Wonderful Exchange: An Exploration of Silent Prayer (Paulist Press, 2005) - see here. Later texts are the pamphlet Prayer as Self-Offering (Fairacres, 2007) - see here - and The Desert Movement: Fresh Perspectives on the Spirituality of the Desert (Canterbury Press, 2011) - see here.
As well as writing, after retirement Ryrie continued his priestly engagement with contemplative life as a priest associate of the Sisters of the Love of God, an Anglican community living a contemplative monastic life at Fairacres near Oxford. YOu can read more about this community and its commitment to silence and solitude here.
Monday 14th August, 2023
Alexander Ryrie, Wonderful Exchange: An Exploration of Silent Prayer (Paulist Press, 2005), 7.
Image: Kamesh Vedula, unsplash.com/kvedula
This short image-backed quote is taken from this week's longer quote, below, in Alexander Ryrie's Wonderful Exchange: An Exploration of Silent Prayer (Paulist Press, 2003), 7. To read more about this book, click here.
Listen to this week's longer quote:
To listen to the longer quote, below, being read, click the play button on the small version of the image next to or below this text. To see the image full screen as you listen, click the expand screen icon in the corner. |
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'We are used to the idea that God “speaks.” We think of our contact with God as taking place largely through words—our words spoken to God, and God’s word addressed to us. But God’s word itself arises out of silence. What we call God’s word is God’s communication to human beings, expressed in part in the form of human words; but this is not God’s being or essence. God’s being is beyond all words. It is a mystery that human thought cannot grasp or language describe, which we can only faintly discern, but it can be represented by silence. “God is silence,” says Abraham of Nathpar, “and in silence is God sung and glorified.” Behind God’s spoken word, at the heart of God, there is a silence that enshrouds the deep mystery of God. We may say that this silence is not of the wide-open spaces of nature, nor of the deep pools of water, but of the distant stars and the far-flung universe. But even this metaphor falls short and collapses before the mystery of the silence of God. It is not a silence that we can “hear,” like the silence of the world around us; but we can dimly sense it and be drawn toward it. There is a strange connection between this silence and the silence at the heart of our inner selves, a reciprocal relation that no metaphor can adequately express, a wonderful exchange between us and God through the medium of silence. Our silence, we may say, “echoes” the unspoken silence of God, reaches out to it and is enfolded in it. In a mysterious way God communicates with our inner heart through [od’s silence.
These different kinds of silence are not disconnected and separate: they connect with each other and can lead into one another. It is this that makes the prayer of silence possible and forms its basis. The silence of the world around us connects with the deeper silence of our hearts, and this connects with the mysterious silence of God. It is in this way that silence becomes not just a prerequisite for prayer but prayer itself.'
Monday 21st August, 2023
Alexander Ryrie, Wonderful Exchange: An Exploration of Silent Prayer (Paulist Press, 2005), 75.
Image: Cherry Laithang, Oslo, Norway, unsplash.com/laicho
This short image-backed quote is from this week's longer quote, below, in Alexander Ryrie's Wonderful Exchange: An Exploration of Silent Prayer (Paulist Press, 2003), 75-76. To read more about this book, click here.
Listen to this week's longer quote:
To listen to the longer quote, below, being read, click the play button on the small version of the image next to or below this text. To see the image full screen as you listen, click the expand screen icon in the corner. |
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'In the modern Western world we tend to look on waiting in a very negative way. We dislike having to wait and sometimes take offense at being kept waiting. But waiting has always been seen as a positive and important aspect of silent prayer. In the deep inner silence, we wait for God. At times when the reality of God is particularly obscure, we may have to wait in darkness. In this silent waiting we are not actively doing anything, neither talking with God nor perhaps even enjoying God’s presence. We are indeed seeking God, but we do so not impatiently or restlessly but in a spirit of quiet, patient, and trustful waiting, because waiting is the mode of our seeking. It is not only a preliminary to prayer, something we have to do if we want to get deeper into prayer, a kind of necessary precondition to something greater. It is all that, but it is more than that: it is a part of the prayer itself.
Waiting for God means waiting in hope. Sometimes this hope itself may be obscure, and we may not be sure what we are waiting for. But because we have at times been given some sense of God’s presence, we trust that God will act in God’s own time and way, and make himself known. We cannot control the actions of God: God acts in God’s own personal freedom, out of grace, not compulsion. …
When we wait for God in silent prayer, we know that before we begin to wait for God, God was waiting for us. We wait because God first waited for us. So even when God seems distant or not available, we know with at least a part of our mind that somewhere in the shadows or the darkness God is waiting for us.'
Monday 28th August, 2023
Alexander Ryrie, Wonderful Exchange: An Exploration of Silent Prayer (Paulist Press, 2005), 47.
Image: Jonathan Pie, Iceland, unsplash.com/r3dmax
The last week of each month offers some questions to help you reflect further on its quotations and images, and how they resonate with your own spiritual journey and relationship with God.
You can engage with these using the written text or the audio version of the questions, below.
Listen to the reflection questions:
To listen to the reflection questions, below, being read, click the play button on the REFLECT image next to or below this text. To see the image full screen as you listen, click the expand screen icon in the corner. |
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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 or listen again to 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.
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 or listen again to 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.
To return to the 'Quoting Silence: A month with ...' Collection, click the button.
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