Hear our Silence workshop at Ammerdown, Bath:
Saturday February 10.
Hear our Silence weekend - Journey into Silence
Abbey House, Glastonbury: July 27-29
Journeying with Julian of Norwich
Ammerdown. October 13
For details and booking contact John Skinner:
1 Purzbrook House
Musbury Road
Axminster EX13 5JG
tel. 01297 631313
The Carthusians of Parkminster dwell in the silence and solitude of their cloister: a rare calling for the few. But these hermit monks serve as a beacon and reminder to us all. For each one of us has an inner self where we can find silence. And once we find this true silence, we wish to savour it again and again, for it is here that we may meet our Maker.
Hear our Silence is the title of my book describing my encounter with the Carthusians of Parkminster; it is also the invitation to the prayer of silence which my wife and I offer by giving workshops all around the country.
Next Saturday, May 6 in Axminster, we will be hosting a small workshop to experience and explore together silent prayer. We will invite a similar group on June 10. Please email me for details : wordman@HearourSilence.com
or feel free to telephone: 01297 631313
We will also be planning further workshops in response to the publicity in The Times as well as my interview with Edward Stourton - how Silence is ’Good for the Soul’ on The Heaven & Earth Show (Sunday May 30, BBC 1, 10-11am).
Bookshop:
Signed copies of my two books on silent prayer are available from me direct:
Hear our Silence - Gracewing £9.99
Living for just two weeks with the Carthusians was a profound experience, above all an immersion in their silent praying. They rise at midnight for Matins and Lauds - three intense hours chanting the psalms in their darkened church. Their morning Eucharist is prayed in drenching silence. I joined them to at work, in the kitchen, in the vegetable garden; and ate their one vegetarian meal a day . . . The experience led to my ’stealing their Silence’ and inviting many others outside to share their method of deepening prayer.
Sounding the Silence - Gracewing £8.00
Friends of Hear our Silence receive a monthly letter from me. Enclosed are four readings or meditations that range over all aspects of prayer; and I offer comments in the accompanying letter. Sounding the Silence brings together readings across the year with a running meditation on their meaning. Gracious illustrations are provided by the gravings of Robert Gibbins.
Both books sent post free: cheques please (no cards) payable to Hear our Silence.
John Skinner, 1 Purzebrook House, Musbury Road, Axminster EX13 5JG
I do not remember reading any papal encyclical with enthusiasm or even a great deal of interest. My father used to mention Rerum Novarum, Leo XIII’s great statement on social justice. I am certain he read that right through since he based all business relationships and his dealings with his employees entirely upon its principles of justice and fair play.
Until now encyclicals were what pope’s do; as dervishes whirl, so pontiffs have to write Latin texts to keep themselves in business.
Until now . . .
Who could have guessed as the world’s media dispersed last April, weary yet satisfied at a thoroughly theatrical circus played out to its conclusion, that this new man on St Peter’s balcony would wait nine months and then write his first encyclical on love.
‘In a world where the name of God is sometimes associated with vengeance or even a duty of hatred and violence, this message is both timely and significant. I wish to speak of the love which God lavishes upon us and which we in turn must share with others . . .
We have come to believe in God’s love: in these words the Christian can express the fundamental decision of his life.’
From his very opening, Benedict’s words invite and inform; you read on in mild disbelief that this can be an encyclical. If so, it is like none other. As readable as Jane Austen and ten times more rewarding.
Every one should take their opportunity to read the full text - see adjacent link. I defy anyone to repeat the rather dubious and tasteless Vatican city label with which the Daily Telegraph announced the pope’s election.
As John spoke of God’s love with his great rolly-polly body, Benedict speaks with a golden tongue. Here is a teacher and philosopher, father and theologian who speaks not just to his 1.1 billion membership but to the world at large.
‘I feel morally and intellectually obligated simply to concede that the death penalty experiment has failed.
It is virtually self-evident to me no that no combination of procedural rules or substantive regulations ever can save the death penalty from its inherent constitutional deficiences. The basic question - does the system accurately and consistently determine which defendants ‘deserve to die’ - cannot be answered in the affirmative. The problem is that the inevitability of factual, legal and moral error gives us a system that we know must wrongly kill some defendants, a system that fails to deliver the fair, consistent and reliable sentences of death required by the Constitution.’
[Callins v Collins 510 US 1141 1994]
Clarence Ray Allen has become the 13th inmate to be put to death since California reinstated the death penalty in 1977.Shortly after midnight Allen deceived a lethal injection of a paralytic agent in the death chamber at San Quentin State Prison. He was pronounced dead at 12:38 a.m.
At 76, Allen was the oldest inmate on California’s death row and the nation’s second-oldest convict to be executed since the U.S. Supreme Court declared capital punishment legal in 1976.
Allen petitioned for clemency on the grounds that his age and poor health made the death penalty a cruel and unusual punishment. He was confined to a wheelchair, was deaf and legally blind, and had diabetes and a variety of other medical conditions.