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 January will appear below in ascending date order.
Quotes for each week of January will appear below in ascending date order.
Bieke Vandekerckhove (1969-2015), our author for January, lived in Kuurne, Belgium. Having been diagnosed with an incurable condition when a university student in her late teens, she was forced to face her own mortality at a time in life when her peers were focussed on their future careers and hopes for adult life.
Monday 2nd January, 2023
Bieke Vandekerckhove, The Taste of Silence: How I Came
to be at Home with Myself (Liturgical Press, 2015), 95.
Image: Tiago Bendeira, unsplash.com/@bendeirati
This short image-backed quote is from Bieke Vandekerckhove's The Taste of Silence: How I Came to be at Home with Myself (Liturgical Press, 2015), 95. You can read more about this book by clicking here.
Bieke Vandekerckhove (1969-2015) was a psychology major undergraduate student at the University of Leurven, Belgium when, at 19, she was diagnosed with the life-limiting condition, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). Although she was told that this degenerative neurodegenerative disease was likely to end her life by her mid 20a at the latest, an unexpected slowing in its progression afforded Bieke a further 27 years of life, during the majority of which she was paralysed from the pelvis upwards. After a deep initial depression, Bieke sought to make sense of her illness. Having been brought up as a Christian, she turned to the teachings of the Benedictine tradition, whose spiritual roots are found in the silence of the Desert Mothers and Fathers. Its intentional engagement with silence offered Bieke a wordless way to connect with herself and all that she was facing when the emotional and psychological trauma of her situation was beyond her capacity to articulate verbally.
With round-the-clock support and help from her husband, Bart Verhulst, and a variety of assistants ,Bieke led a full and active life counselling, teaching and writing. In 2010 her book, The Taste of Silence, won Belgium's Spiritual Book of the Year prize. Chronicling her struggles with ALS, the book is comprised of 27 short chapters written over many years which, together, give readers a rich insight into Bieke's exploration of encountering herself and God in silence. The depths of her engagement drew her beyond Christianity into the wisdom found within Zen Buddhism. For Bieke, the Christian and Zen traditions became 'the two lungs through which I breathe' - a dual-belonging that is not unfamiliar amongst long-practiced meditators. She gave retreats and facilitated Zen meetings until very close to her death in 2015. The year before Bieke was formally received as a Zen Master and received the name Xia Fan Zhi Guang, which means 'Light of kenosis': kenosis being the Greek word for 'self-emptying' most familiar to Christians in Philippians 2: 5-11, often referred to as the 'Hymn' or 'Canticle of Christ's Glory'.
Other than book reviews, there is little about Bieke on the internet today. However, you can read more about A Taste of Silence here in an article whose title, 'Boredom is a fault within ourselves', is taken from Bieke's writing, and a longer article here or here in Spiritus: A Journal of Christian Spirituality. There's an additional lovely article about her life and the book here. Patrick Henry, a former Professor of Religion at Swarthmore College, Pennsylvania, highlights Bieke's book in his own Flashes of Grace: 33 Encounters with God (Eerdmans, 2021), which might also be of interest. You can read an interview with him in which he headlines Bieke's life and book here, and you can read about his book here.
Monday 9th January, 2023
Bieke Vandekerckhove, The Taste of Silence: How I Came
to be at Home with Myself (Liturgical Press, 2015), 86.
to be at Home with Myself (Liturgical Press, 2015), 86.
Image: Vlad Shapochnikov, Amsterdam, unsplash.com/@vladshap
This short image-backed quote is taken from the longer quotation, below, in Bieke Vandekerckhove's The Taste of Silence: How I Came to be at Home with Myself (Liturgical Press, 2015), 86. You can read more about this book by clicking here.
'Curiously, for me silence creates space for the unfamiliar. Silence unglues you from your own little world and wishes. I know this sounds like a paradox. From the outside it looks like you withdraw into yourself. But it isn’t that way. It is precisely in the silence that you unhook from your own self. You become distanced from yourself. And that creates space for something other than you. Granted, at first the silence throws people back onto themselves, and that can be a trap. But in a sustained stillness the movement towards the other direction happens sooner or later. A lengthy silence always impels towards the other, the unknown, the unfamiliar.'
Monday 16th January, 2023
Bieke Vandekerckhove, The Taste of Silence: How I Came
to be at Home with Myself (Liturgical Press, 2015), 92.
to be at Home with Myself (Liturgical Press, 2015), 92.
Image: Zac Durant, Massachusetts,USA, zacdurant.com
This short image-backed quote is taken from the longer quotation, below, in Bieke Vandekerckhove's The Taste of Silence: How I Came to be at Home with Myself (Liturgical Press, 2015), 92. You can read more about this book by clicking here.
'I receive a letter from a friend in which he cites “The worst enemy of compassion is called sympathy. Sympathy feels so badly for that poor fellow, as if he were different from us in any way.” What matters is compassion. And compassion is: understanding with your whole heart that the other actually is no different from you. We are all cut from the same cloth. We all need to be allowed to start over. Compassion truly is something else than sympathy. … Compassion is the big unknown, and it requires silence, a lot of silence, if it is to have a chance among us. An inner conversion needs to take place.'
Monday 23rd January, 2023
Bieke Vandekerckhove, The Taste of Silence: How I Came
to be at Home with Myself (Liturgical Press, 2015), 119.
to be at Home with Myself (Liturgical Press, 2015), 119.
Image: Tom Barrett, Wisconsin, USA, unsplash.com/@wistomsin
This short image-backed quote is taken from the longer quotation, below, in Bieke Vandekerckhove's The Taste of Silence: How I Came to be at Home with Myself (Liturgical Press, 2015), 119-120. You can read more about this book by clicking here.
'To be at home with yourself (habitare secum in latin) is a basic exercise in the Benedictine tradition. It means to take time every day to listen in silence to what is within you. In other words, that you insert moments in which you dwell with yourself in silence, no matter how difficult it may be. Monks sit on a bench, Zen practitioners on a meditation cushion, but basically they do the same thing: they introduce moments in which they are with themselves in silence.
We find that rather strange. Why would you apply yourself to something as silly? A waste of your time, we say. But more than anything, we find it difficult. Why endure turmoil, confusion, and gloominess, when there are so many attractive ways to escape from all that? We would rather evade silence than look for it. At least, that’s the way it was and is for me. Yet, I know, these spiritual traditions have a point. What that point is you can only discover by doing it yourself. It has to do with one’s life fulfilment. But what this fulfilment contains, you can only experience by walking that path yourself. …
It is said of Benedict that he was at home with himself. Isn’t it beautiful to be able to say that of somebody? Don’t you wish right away that you could meet such a person? I wanted to learn this being at home with myself, no matter how afraid I was of it.'
Monday 30th January, 2023
Bieke Vandekerckhove, The Taste of Silence: How I Came
to be at Home with Myself (Liturgical Press, 2015), 138.
to be at Home with Myself (Liturgical Press, 2015), 138.
Image: Diogo Nunes, Portugal, unsplash.com/@dialex
This short image-backed quote is from Bieke Vandekerckhove's The Taste of Silence: How I Came to be at Home with Myself (Liturgical Press, 2015), 138. 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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