Hear Our Silence

Three magic moments yesterday, as Judith and I took an Autumn saunter through Whitford. The last time we were there, a month ago, the village had been invaded by more than 100 scarecrows. And many were in the tiny church, frozen figures apparently listening to a silent sermon from a Lady Vicar! It was like a still from a Worzel Gummidge tale. (The village was celebrating their community spirit in wit and style.)

But this afternoon, we were treated to three living tableaux. We parked the car by the weir and gazed down into the moving water below. There lay two lazy trout, their brown backs gleaming in the sun; they lolled against each other as they grazed the weedy lip of the concrete overflow ledge. Oblivious to us, they were still there on our return half an hour later.

Now a sudden coloured arrow shot low across the river. A kingfisher on patrol: gone in a flash, but a joy to witness.

Above our heads as we passed on into the village, a windhover was being mobbed by a cheeky club of daws. Why do rooks go after buzzards in a similar way? I always find it most disrespectful, but I suppose it gives everyone a little excited flying practice.

The best was yet to come. In a shady lane we stopped at the sight of a slow flying Golden Ringed dragon fly, one of our largest and most spectacular. This fellow was performing it seemed solely for our benefit. And brave it was. He appeared to be in bottom gear that is to say one could follow him easily with the eye as he beat back and forth over perhaps a twenty foot territory mainly a foot or so above the road. We stood for five minutes, may be longer, right in the middle of his patch; the treat was to admire his aerobatics, skilled flying beyond belief, coupled with a marvellous close-up of his beguiling golden-ringed abdomen.

Four gorgeous un-asked for gifts on a late September afternoon.

I have a workshop coming up at Ammerdown on Saturday October 13,  the retreat centre outside Bath, when I want to focus on some simple themes of Julian of Norwich. Having translated Julian (Revelation of Love Gracewing & Doubleday) I am now working on a simplification of her ‘meaning’, concentrating on four main themes.

We will look at these over our day spent together - at silent prayer and then discovering Julian with lectio Divina.

Nothing too startling or posh: just letting her words and her experience speak to us today. Powerful lady: her voice comes through loud and clear from Fourteenth Century Norwich.

And as she reassures, these same showings were given not just to me ‘but to all my even Christians’.

www.ammerdown.org

or contact John Skinner 01297 631313

wordman@HearourSilence.com

I have just cleared over 2000 would-be comments to my website which have accumulated over the past three or four months. Almost all are jejeune porn links; sadly they appear to emanate from American (and some UK) universities.

But lying amongst all this depressing detritus was a message from Father Bosco Peters who is chaplain to Christ’s College Canterbury, New Zealand. Never heard of it: we should have. It is New Zealand’s leading public school and dates back to the middle of the 19th Century. Bosco majors on the Liturgy, the public worship and expression of our Christian faith. I have promised to link Hear our Silence to his own website - well worth a visit.

He includes a post on the Carthusians and also the Prayer of Silence. The 600 boys of Christ’s College would appear to be in good hands.

Apologies for my Silence

Perhaps no one has noticed. Save a knave who inexplicably bombs my site night and day with ‘reply to the following comment’: there follows a porno lead!

Originally stemming from the University of America, he now comes from all over…

Well, to ignore.

My dear friend Eileen is dying: we keep her in our prayers and heart. More later…

A letter plopped through our front door last week. From Pleterje, the Carthusian monastery in Slovenia.

Father Peter Plater praying to lay hands and eyes on my Hear our Silence book. How I met the English Carthusians of Parkminster. When all this Blog and Non-Silence first began. Here it comes, dear Peter, I wonder how you heard of us?

Pleterje - don’t ask me where exactly in Slovenia: my Times Atlas is silent on the place, respectful as always.

They have a chequered history. Founded in 1403, a Duke gave them land and their substance.

Then came the Turks, 70 years later, and flattened the place. It was rebuilt, now almost as a castle for protection.

But fabric and inner spiritual decay deemed that their plant was handed over to the Jesuits in 1593…But then 200 years later they were suppressed from Rome. Now the State took over; then in 1893 it became private property. And that enabled the energetic Carthusians to buy back Pleterje in 1899.

That was more or less the time when, having been ousted from France and Germany, the Order came back ‘with a surge’ [as Pres. GB wd nowadays have us believe] with a vengeance. Parkminster had been established in England 25 years earlier.

Pleterje soldiered on into the mid-20th Century. Tito and his partisans: the monks made an accommodation, Communist and Catholic. But nasty things seemed to have happened: ‘17 cells were destroyed by fire’ - prisoners opposing the partisans had been executed.

But the Carthusians stayed on, the only Charterhouse to remain within the Communist orbit until the Iron Curtain falls.

Today, they appear to thrive: do visit their admirable website, and pray along with them -

http://www.kartuzija-pleterje.si/index_carthusians.htm