Saturday, December 07, 2019

Happy Christmas

Many thanks to all of you who have written inquiring about the silence on this blog. It seems that after two volumes on silence I have written myself into silence! How long this will last I don't know; it can't be forced. It almost seems as though the world is so mad that there is little that can be said about it.

For those of you asking about my health it is generally OK, except that at the moment I have pneumonia and am going to have an extremely quiet Christmas. But then, that's the way I prefer it in any case.

Wherever you are, whatever you are doing, may your Christmas and New Year be very blessed. And please pray that we may find a way forward through this ecological nightmare, even if it only means, as Bringhurst and Zwicky, and Roy Scranton, have titled their books, learning to die. Both these books are good, but the Zwicky is outstanding.


6 Comments:

Anonymous Iona said...

I wanted to say just how thankful I am for your two-volume Silence. I only discovered your work just a few months ago. It means a lot to me.

I hope you recover from your pneumonia quickly, and that you have a quiet Christmas and New Year, "At the still point of the turning world."

Thank you.

2:11 pm, December 15, 2019  
Blogger trueanglican said...

It grieves to pass on to you word of the death of our mutual friend George Swanson. He died Dec. 5 after a long struggle with heart disease and metastatic melanoma. Best wishes to you. You have been silent a long time. Bill MacKaye

12:05 am, December 16, 2019  
Blogger Maggie Ross said...

Thank you for letting me know about George, Bill. I will pray for him. Sorry about the silence, but at the moment I'm too wiped out to write anything. Perhaps later this year when I am somewhat recovered. Thanks for your interest

9:09 am, December 16, 2019  
Anonymous Ian Duncan said...

Very happy to have had a word from you. We all would hope you are being well cared for and that you will recover soon.
Ian Duncan

7:27 pm, December 16, 2019  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

May God brood over the silence and finally speak a Word
A life giving word
A word, weighty as the silence that gave it birth

11:49 pm, December 23, 2019  
Blogger The Galician said...

I have never really understood (or really given any thought to) silence. However, about six months ago, I began to attend Quaker meetings and found something sacred in the stillness and expectant waiting. More recently, I have attended 2 silent retreats. They were about a month apart and each was very different. In the first, I felt an enthusiasm in the silence; a connected creativity and inspiration. In the second, I began with a sense of absolute peace and harmony; of being home. However, that feeling was short lived and transitory. The majority of the day was spent with a sense of being lost, alone and solitary in the silence. As the day was drawing to a close, I happened upon Volume 2 of Silence: A User’s Guide. Its one of those books that I look at with a sense of trepidation tinged with excitement. I did not need to spend much time in the company of that book to realise that I know almost nothing about silence other than I am finding the noise of people increasingly difficult.

8:41 am, January 12, 2020  

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