In May 2022, a new quote series began, called 'Quoting Silence: A month with ... '.
In this series, we stay with quotes from one author throughout a whole month.
In this series, we stay with quotes from one author throughout a whole month.
To access the Quoting Silence Collection, which contains the entire back-catalogue of quotes and their additional resource links, click the buttons at the bottom of this page.
This week's quote
Monday 22nd July, 2024
Ruth Haley Barton, Invitation to Silence and Solitude: Experiencing God’s Transforming Presence (SPCK, 2021 [2004]), 116-117.
Image: Brittney Burnett, Texas, USA, unsplash.com/@brittneyburnett
The short, image-backed quote, above, is taken from this week's longer quote, below, from pages 116-117 of Ruth Haley Barton's book. To read more about her book, from which this month's quotes are taken, click here.
Guided meditation for the short quote
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Listen to the longer quote
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Lectio Divina for use with long quote
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For a 5 minute audio guided meditation to accompany this week's short image-backed quote, click the play button on the image above. To pause, click in the same place.
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To hear this week's longer quotation being read, click the play button on the image above.
To see the image full-screen as you listen, click the expand screen icon in the corner. |
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 a text version of the meditation, click here.
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‘The practices of solitude and silence do, in time, bring us full circle – back into life in the human community. Whether we have been away for a half an hour of solitude, had an extended retreat time or have dropped completely out of sight for a while, God, in his time, does eventually bring us back to the life he has given us. Perhaps nothing in our external circumstances has changed, but we have changed, and that’s what our world needs more than anything.
Without pressing or pushing or trying to do a great altruistic deed, we discover than much that happens in solitude and silence ends up being “for others” – as paradoxical as that may seem. Our speech patterns are refined by disciplines of silence, because growing self-awareness enables us to choose more truly the words we say. Rather than speech that issues from subconscious needs to impress, to put others in their place, to compete, to control and manipulate, to repay hurt with hurt, we now notice our inner dynamics and choose to speak from a different place, a place of love, trust and true wisdom that God is cultivating within us. Over time we become safer for other seeking souls, because we are able to be with them and the issues they are dealing with without being hooked by our own anxieties and fears. We are comfortable with our humanity, because we have experienced Gods love and compassion in that place, and so it becomes very natural for us to extend love and compassion to others in their humanity.’
To view all quotes & materials for Quoting Silence: A month with Ruth Haley Barton, click the largest image-backed quote above or the button below.
To receive each Monday's 'Quoting Silence: A month with ... ' email,
click the button below.
click the button below.
The Quoting Silence Collection
To go to the collection of more than 50 different image-backed quotes about silence, each from a different author, and with links to associated resources, please click the button below.
The 'Quoting Silence:
A month with ... ' Collection
From May 2022 the 'Quoting Silence: A month with ... ' quotes are building into a new collection over the year. From this collection, you'll be able to access all the quotes and resources from any month by clicking the button.
To go to this new collection, click the button below.
To go to this new collection, click the button below.
You can search the entire website here.
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