{"id":86,"date":"2010-02-04T04:54:00","date_gmt":"2010-02-04T12:54:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/?p=86"},"modified":"2011-03-16T07:52:31","modified_gmt":"2011-03-16T14:52:31","slug":"silence","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/silence\/","title":{"rendered":"Silence"},"content":{"rendered":"

Y<\/span>esterday I came upon something which struck me as so self-evidently true that I sort of wondered why I haven’t done something about it.<\/p>\n

I’m taking the quote out of context, but not much.<\/p>\n

Prayer presents difficulties today, difficulties which maybe [were not so much present] in the past, in a time in which the rhythm of life was a bit more human, and there was not so much stress, not so much noise, maybe [then] prayer, recollection, concentration, thinking, elevating one’s mind towards God were much easier. Today in a world as busy as ours, prayer becomes certainly more difficult. We must emphasize the absolute necessity of prayer… (Franc Cardinal Rod\u00e9, C.M., Prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life)<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s all about the noise. I’m reminded of 1 Kings 19:11-12, where Elijah does not find God in the earthquake or the storm, but in the still, small breeze.<\/p>\n

We find God in silence, when we have time to think<\/i> and to pray<\/i>.<\/p>\n

I know this. I’ve written here about this in the past. But I get so caught up the noise of every day, the busy and the bustle and the hubbub, that everything of importance flees my mind.<\/p>\n

I’m out of the home for 13 hours every day, and I’m exhausted when I get home.<\/p>\n

I know I need to change the rhythm of my life from the rhythm of the machine to the rhythm of the human. I’m just too exhausted to figure out how to do it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday I came upon something which struck me as so self-evidently true that I sort of wondered why I haven’t done something about it. I’m taking the quote out of context, but not much. Prayer presents difficulties today, difficulties which maybe [were not so much present] in the past, in a time in which the rhythm of life was a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[15,20,14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-86","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-meditations","category-silence","category-wisdom"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/s1aGBK-silence","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":false,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2282,"url":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/a-catechesis-on-silence\/","url_meta":{"origin":86,"position":0},"title":"A Catechesis on Silence","author":"Thom","date":"12 March 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"On the old calendar, today is the feast of Pope Saint Gregory the Great, confessor and doctor of the Church (540 - 604). In addition to the above, Saint Gregory was also a Benedictine abbot prior to his election as Pope. So it is in the monastic spirit that today\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Meditations"","block_context":{"text":"Meditations","link":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/category\/meditations\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/03\/pope-saint-gregory-the-great-1-300x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":6,"url":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/die-grosse-stille\/","url_meta":{"origin":86,"position":1},"title":"Die Gro\u00dfe Stille","author":"Thom","date":"10 June 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Into Great Silence, which we saw at SIFF last week, is ostensibly a documentary about the Carthusian monks of Grande Chartreuse. I say ostensibly, because it is actually a great deal more and less than that. Like the lives of these monks themselves, this film is a meditation on silence.\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Meditations"","block_context":{"text":"Meditations","link":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/category\/meditations\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Great-Silence-4.jpg?fit=570%2C412&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Great-Silence-4.jpg?fit=570%2C412&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/Great-Silence-4.jpg?fit=570%2C412&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":90810,"url":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/saint-benedict-on-silence\/","url_meta":{"origin":86,"position":2},"title":"Saint Benedict on Silence","author":"Thom","date":"21 March 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Happy Feast of Saint Benedict! Although it no longer appears on the Universal (Roman) calendar, today is one of two feasts of Saint Benedict of Norcia celebrated by Benedictines throughout the world. This feast is sometimes called the Transitus of Saint Benedict, for it is the day in the year\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Meditations"","block_context":{"text":"Meditations","link":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/category\/meditations\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/Saint-Benedict.jpg?fit=600%2C600&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/Saint-Benedict.jpg?fit=600%2C600&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/Saint-Benedict.jpg?fit=600%2C600&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":87376,"url":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/down-in-adoration-falling\/","url_meta":{"origin":86,"position":3},"title":"Down in Adoration Falling","author":"Thom","date":"27 June 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"Last week, I ran across a quote by a French Catholic author of the last century that really resonated with me. \"You understand absolutely nothing about modern civilization unless you first admit that it is a conspiracy against all interior life.\" (George Bernanos) Even the very roots of the word\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Camino"","block_context":{"text":"Camino","link":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/category\/camino\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"Light Pollution (http:\/\/laps.noaa.gov\/albers\/slides\/ast\/places.html)","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/light-pollution.gif?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/light-pollution.gif?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/light-pollution.gif?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/light-pollution.gif?resize=700%2C400 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/06\/light-pollution.gif?resize=1050%2C600 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":6552,"url":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/silence-prayer-work\/","url_meta":{"origin":86,"position":4},"title":"Silence. Prayer. Work.","author":"Thom","date":"19 July 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Both of my readers will recall that I often reread the Desert Fathers during Lent. Today is the feast day of one of them, Saint Arsenius. He was a wealthy, educated man who gave up everything to worship God in the desert. Quite a contrast with yesterday's feast of Saint\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Meditations"","block_context":{"text":"Meditations","link":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/category\/meditations\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":162,"url":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/a-meditation-on-silence\/","url_meta":{"origin":86,"position":5},"title":"A Meditation on Silence","author":"Thom","date":"31 October 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"There are two kinds of people - those who know the value of silence and those who do not. The silent man may be moved to speak, to shout, and even perhaps to bellow in righteous indignation if the circumstances require. He may do so reluctantly or even with fear,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Meditations"","block_context":{"text":"Meditations","link":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/category\/meditations\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":407,"href":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86\/revisions\/407"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thomryng.com\/amateurmonk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}