Quoting Silence, October 2024:
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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. |
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.
Richard Rohr, our author for October, is known internationally as a writer, speaker and teacher of contemplative spirituality and his wise and compassionate input into this community over many decades has made him a much-loved figure beyond those from the Christian tradition.
You can read more about Richard Rohr's book, Silent Compassion:Finding God in Contemplation (Franciscan Media, 2014), from which this month's quotes are taken, by clicking here.
You can read more about Richard Rohr's book, Silent Compassion:Finding God in Contemplation (Franciscan Media, 2014), from which this month's quotes are taken, by clicking here.
Audio resources
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For a 5 minute audio guided meditation to use with each week's short quote, click play on the image. To pause and restart click the same place.
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An audio guided Lectio Divina for the longer quotes. Click play on the image above. Allow 10-15 minutes for this. For a text version, click the button.
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Monday 7th October , 2024
Richard Rohr, Silent Compassion: Finding God in Contemplation (Franciscan Media, 2014), 2.
Image: Nathan Anderson, Tennessee, USA, unsplash.com/@nathananderson
Richard Rohr is an American, Franciscan priest who, for many decades, has probably been one of the world's most well-known writers, teachers and speakers on contemplative spirituality, both in the Christian community and beyond.
Born in Kansas in 1943, he joined the Franciscans in 1961 and was ordained priest in the Roman Catholic Church in 1970. A year later he established the New Jerusalem Community in Cincinnati a year later and, in 1986, founded the now globally renowned Centre for Action and Contemplation (CAC) in Albuquerque, New Mexico: see here for CAC's extensive website that will lead you to many great resources. Rohr served as founding director and academic dean of CAC's Living School for Action and Contemplation until standing back from public ministry in late 2022 following a lymphoma diagnosis. Core faculty members at the School have included other well-known contemplative teachers, writers and speakers such as Cynthia Bourgeault, James (Jim) Finley, Barbara A. Holmes and Brian McLaren.
Richard Rohr has been a prolific author, publishing nearly 40 books (for a full list of titles, click here). Some of the favourites, quoted time after time, include Falling Upward: A Spirituality for the Two Halves of Life (Jossey-Bass, 2011 - see here), which explores our movement towards spiritual maturity; Immortal Diamond: The Search for Our True Self (Jossey-Bass, 2013 - see here), which helps readers uncover who they really are as made in God's image; and The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See (Crossroad Publishing, 2009), where we learn what it is to be spiritually awake and connected to our deepest selves.
There are very many talks by Fr Richard, as he's often known, on YouTube. Click here to hear a 30 minute discussion about his practice of silence; click here for a one hour teaching on 'Becoming Stillness'; or click here for a two-hour video recorded at the Festival of Faiths conference in 2013 and click here to find out more about the Festival of Faiths. The Festival of Faiths' 28th Annual Conference from Louisville, Kentucky (where some of you will recall that Thomas Merton had his life-changing 'corner of Fourth and Walnut' awakening to how he loved all people - click here to read), is from 13th-16th November and, entitled Sacred Imagining, will explore the beauty of creativity and the power of ideas to change the world. In Merton's honour, it exists to celebrate the world's many faith traditions and promotes interfaith understanding.
Richard Rohr is also known and loved by many for his 'Daily Meditations', which have been going out as an email every day of the year since 2014. It's hard to find 2024 stats, but in 2021 these were being received by over 400,000 people a day! Originally all written by Rohr himself, there is now a team who put these together, invariably quoting Rohr, the Living School faculty members and many contemporary teachers of the contemplative, wisdom path, but still following the themes of how contemplative spirituality intersects with social justice. You can sign up to receive the wonderful and, for many, life-changing emails by clicking here.
Monday 14th October, 2024
Richard Rohr, Silent Compassion: Finding God in Contemplation (Franciscan Media, 2014), 4.
Image: Matt Antoniolio, Houstan, Texas, unsplash.com/@antoniolio
The short, image-backed quote, above, is taken from this week's longer quote, below, on pages 3-4 of Richard Rohr's book. To read more about his book, from which this month's quotes are taken, click here.
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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 need to try to see silence as a living presence of itself, which is primordial and primal, and then see all other things—now experienced deeply—inside of that container. It is not just an absence, but, also by that very fact, a presence. Silence surrounds every “I know” event with a humble and patient “I don’t know.” It protects the autonomy and dignity of events, persons, animals, and all things.
We must find a way to return to this place, to live in this place, to abide in this place of inner silence. Outer silence means very little if there is not a deeper inner silence. Everything else appears much clearer as it appears or emerges out of a previous silence. And when I use the word appear I mean it takes on reality, substance, significance, or meaning. Without silence around a thing, which is a mystery, nothing has meaning or meaning that lasts. It is just another event in a sequence of ever-quicker events, which we call our lives.
Without silence, we do not really experience our experiences. We have many experiences, but they do not have the power to change us, to awaken us, to give us that joy that the world cannot give, as Jesus says.
… Without some degree of silence, we are never living, never tasting, as there is not much capacity to enjoy, or to appreciate, or to taste the moment. The opposite of contemplation is not action, it is reaction. We must wait for pure action, which always proceeds from a contemplative silence.’
Monday 21st October, 2024
Richard Rohr, Silent Compassion: Finding God in Contemplation (Franciscan Media, 2014), 25.
Image: Alison Woolley, Scotland, unsplash.com/@dralisonwoolley
The short, image-backed quote, above, is taken from this week's longer quote, below, on pages 25-26 of Richard Rohr's book. To read more about his book, from which this month's quotes are taken, click here.
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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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‘Silence attracts meaning. If you stay silent for a whole hour it will be hard not to write a poem.
In silence, everything becomes real. Everything deserves a poem. Silence discloses the fullness of the now, instead of always waiting and wanting more, instead of waiting for the next thing, the more exciting thing to happen. But what we have to remember is how we do anything is how we do everything. And how we do this moment is how we are going to do the next moment. And if we’re bored to death with this moment, we’re going to be bored to death with the next moment. We have to be awake right now. And we can be through silence. It is not a matter of being more moral but being more conscious—which will eventually make you much more moral! What it means to be vulnerable before a moment is to give it the power to change us. If we do not give another person, or emotion the power to influence us, to change us, then we are not intimate with the moment, not vulnerable before the only reality we have.
In many ways, intimacy before the moment, vulnerability in the presence of all reality, is the very name of spirituality. It would be indeed heroic if we could live our whole life inside of this kind of semi-permeable membrane. It would allow all events in, enough to really change us, and allow us out of our prisons—to change the world a bit, I would hope. If our spirituality does not make us more vulnerable, I doubt whether it is much good.
Silence, if you respond to a little bit of it, sort of hides. But if you remain open, then it reveals more. It reveals and hides, it reveals and hides, it reveals and hides. It waits and sees if you are going to use it in a non-manipulative way, and if you remain non-manipulative, it gives even more of itself. Please think about that for a while.
So be patient with silence. It gives a little, and then it gives more if you do not abuse the first little. It is like floating in water; once you stop fighting it, you float even better.'
Monday 28th October, 2024
Richard Rohr, Silent Compassion: Finding God in Contemplation (Franciscan Media, 2014), 26.
Image: Chad Stembridge, Nashville, TN, USA, unsplash.com/@cstembridge
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 or audio versions of the questions, below.
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 or audio versions of the questions, below.
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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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Reflection questions:
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.