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 November will appear below in ascending date order.

Sister Wendy Beckett, our author for November, was something of a  phenomenon back in the 1990s when her profound yet engaging series of TV documentaries for the BBC took viewers on a tour through the history of art. She died in 2018.
Monday 7th November, 2022
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​Wendy Beckett, Meditations on Silence ​(Dorling Kindersley, 1995), 20.
Image: Igor Kasalovic, Sydney, Australia, igorkasalovic.com

This short image-backed quote is from Sister Wendy Beckett's Meditations on Silence (Dorling Kindersley, 1995), 20. You can read more about this book by clicking here. 

Wendy Beckett (1930-2018) entered Roman Catholic convent life as a novice when she was just 16, before attaining a first class degree in English Literature at St Anne's College, Oxford. After completing teaching qualifications in Liverpool she was sent to Notre Dame Convent School in Cape Town, South Africa, where she taught English and Latin, before becoming Mother Superior at a Convent in Johannesburg whilst also developing her academic career lecturing at the University of Whitwatersand. Returning to England due to poor health in 1970, she was given papal blessing to leave her community and become a consecrated hermit, living in a caravan - and later mobile home - in the grounds of the Carmelite monastery at Quidenham, Norfolk. It wasn't until the early 1980s that Beckett began studying art seriously, and published her first book about art, Contemporary Women Artists (Oxford: Phiadon, 1988) - see here - in less than a decade.

Her TV documentaries for the BBC began with Sister Wendy's Odyssey in 1992, which you can watch on YouTube, here. This was just the first in a whole raft of documentaries. But perhaps most relevant to those exploring silence and its invitation to the self-emptying of kenosis, is her short appearance in The Art of Dying, shown on BBC 4 in 2009 when Sr. Wendy was 79, and which you can watch here. Just how much Sr. Wendy became part of popular culture is exemplified in the musical written about her by Marcus Reeves, called Postcards from God: The Sister Wendy Musical, which ran in the West End of London in 2007. You can hear the tracks from the show here. She also recorded an audio book of Julian of Norwich's Revelations of Divine Love, which you can listen to for free for a month by clicking here. But aside from her media appearances, Sr Wendy devoted her life to solitude and prayer, and her brief but beautifully observed meditations about silence based on the 17 artworks pictured in this month's book are worth returning to time and again. If you'd like to read more by Sister Wendy about prayer and her deep engagement with silence and contemplative life, then see Sister Wendy on Prayer (Harmony Books, 2006), here.
Monday 14th November, 2022
Sr. Wendy Beckett, Meditations on Silence (Dorling Kindersley, 1995), 36.
Images: Matt Feeney, unsplash.com/@matt_feeney and Bodleian Libraries, Oxford

​The short image-backed quote, above, is taken from the longer quotation, below, from Sister Wendy Beckett's Meditations on Silence (Dorling Kindersley, 1995), 36 & 38. You can read more about this book by clicking here.

'There is nothing casual about silence. In its peace it is productive. It prepares us for whatever is to come. Our bodily eyes may (or may not) be shut, but the eyes of the spirit are wide-open and watchful. Silence is, in itself, an armour. What silence principally armours us against is Babel: the endless foolish chatter, words used to confound thought, words used to ward off friendship or attachments, words as occupation. The biblical Babel was a metaphor for the loss of human ability to communicate as a consequence of the rise of different languages; but the foreignness of other tongues is a smokescreen. To express what one means, and to hear what another means: this is a rare thing. Babel is profoundly destructive of our energies. ... We have an absolute need for quiet, for the heart's wordless resting in God.'
Monday 21st November, 2022
Sr. Wendy Beckett, Meditations on Silence (Dorling Kindersley, 1995), 14.
​Image: Thomas Vogel, unsplash.com/@tomvog

​The short image-backed quote, above, is taken from the longer quotation, below, from Sister Wendy Beckett's Meditations on Silence (Dorling Kindersley, 1995), 12 & 14. You can read more about this book by clicking here.

'Life seems simpler if we blot out awareness of its mystery, but such a life is an impoverished one. … Who can ever understand the meaning of events that make up our conscious experience – in relationships, in business, or whatever? But the swirl of events are the context wherein is held the gate. It is a real but shadowy presence, a way through, a possibility. If we allow silence to open up within, we shall see the gate and be free to open it. … The gate that silence opens up within us leads to light. Light exposes with an almost merciless radiance and, in the exposure, reveals the beauty of the real.'
Monday 28th November, 2022
Sr. Wendy Beckett, Meditations on Silence (Dorling Kindersley, 1995), 16.
Image: Gage Smith, Arizona, USA, unsplash.com/@curious_gage

​The short image-backed quote, above, is taken from Sister Wendy Beckett's Meditations on Silence (Dorling Kindersley, 1995), 16. 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? 
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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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