Encountering Silence

Cassidy Hall speaks with self-described "evangelist for poetry," Kathleen Norris .

This week our conversation with Quaker activist, author, and educator Parker J. Palmer continues. Please listen to Part One (Episode 33) if you haven't already done so.

In this week's episode, we explore the question of how sometimes silence can be toxic (a "silencing" rather than the silence that frees), and how Quaker spirituality has informed Palmer's relationship with silence.  He examines the difference between "adversarial listening" and "consensual decision-making" which embraces silence as a way to foster community and healthy relationships. Perhaps most moving of all is Palmer's heartfelt story about who is "silence hero" is.

One of the great things about poetry, the reason it's so appealing to people who are on a spiritual quest, is that there's a lot of space and a lot of silence between the lines, and between the words... poetry and silence have a great relationship to each other. — Parker J. Palmer

Palmer's deeply contemplative approach to silence, to education, to politics, and to vocation make his voice more important than ever as we seek to navigate the challenging issues of our time.

Some of the resources and authors mentioned in this episode:

Parker J. Palmer, On the Brink of Everything

Parker J. Palmer, The Courage to Teach

Parker J. Palmer, Healing the Heart of Democracy

Parker J. Palmer, Let Your Life Speak

Parker J. Palmer, A Hidden Wholeness

Parker J. Palmer, The Promise of Paradox

Parker J. Palmer, The Active Life

Thomas Merton, The Intimate Merton: His Life from His Journals

Thomas Merton, The Sign of Jonas

Thomas Merton, Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander

Thomas Merton, Zen and the Birds of Appetite

Thomas Merton, The Asian Journal

Thomas Merton, The Way of Chuang Tzu

Thomas Merton, The Seven Storey Mountain

Henri Nouwen, Reaching Out

Henri Nouwen, Out of Solitude

Richard Rohr, Silent Compassion

Wendell Berry, What I Stand On: The Collected Essays

Wendell Berry, The Selected Poems

Wendell Berry, The Memory of Old Jack

Wendell Berry, Hannah Coulter

Mary Oliver, "When Death Comes" found in Devotions: The Selected Poems

Wendell Berry, "How to be a poet" found in New Collected Poems

Thich Nhat Hanh, Silence: The Power of Quiet in a World Full of Noise

The Dalai Lama, The Art of Happiness

Henri Nouwen, The Wounded Healer

Episode 34: On the Brink of Silence: A Conversation with Parker J. Palmer (Part Two)

Hosted by: Cassidy Hall

With: Kevin Johnson, Carl McColman

Guest: Parker J. Palmer

Date Recorded: July 13, 2018

The conclusion of our conversation with noted author and activist Parker J. Palmer.

Parker J. Palmer is a world-renowned writer, speaker, educator, and activist whose work explores issues and concerns related to spirituality, education, community, leadership, and social change. He is the author of many books, including Let Your Life Speak,A Hidden Wholeness,The Promise of Paradox, and The Active Life.

He is a member of the Religious Society of Friends, commonly known as the Quakers.

"The impact of silence is not only solace, but disturbance. Silence forces you to look at your life in some very challenging ways. I think in our culture that's once of the reasons silence is not popular. It's one of the reasons we fill the air with noise, and

we fill our minds with noise, because we avoid having to take that deep dive into ourselves." — Parker J. Palmer

Parker joined us in July for a splendid conversation including insight into his latest book,On the Brink of Everything: Grace, Gravity and Getting Old — and so much more. He proved to be so generous with his time that our conversation extended well over an hour — and so we are pleased to present our first "two-part" Encountering Silence interview! Episode 33 begins the conversation, and the conclusion of the interview is found in Episode 34.

"First the silence broke me down, and then it gave me a context, once I understood what was happening, a context in which to rebuild a faith that was rooted in experience. That's an incredible gift." — Parker J. Palmer

He shares early memories of silence — from solitary hours in childhood spent reading and building model airplanes — and then muses on how silence accompanied his adult life as a social activist, community organizer, and Quaker educator. After a serendipitous encounter with the writings of Thomas Merton, Palmer discovered that silence was essential not only to his spiritual practice, but to discovering both the riches — and to the shadow — of his own soul.

"I began to recognize that the burnout that I was beginning to feel was about six months away as a terminal burnout, if I didn't start practicing some things that would help me avoid it, and silence was one of those things." — Parker J. Palmer

Some of the resources and authors mentioned in this episode:

Parker J. Palmer, On the Brink of Everything

Parker J. Palmer, The Courage to Teach

Parker J. Palmer, Healing the Heart of Democracy

Parker J. Palmer, Let Your Life Speak

Parker J. Palmer, A Hidden Wholeness

Parker J. Palmer, The Promise of Paradox

Parker J. Palmer, The Active Life

Robert Louis Stevenson, Treasure Island

Thomas Merton, The Seven Storey Mountain

Thomas Mann, The Magic Mountain

Martin Luther, The Ninety-Five Theses and Other Writings

Sydney Carter, The Present Tense: Songs of Sydney Carter

John of the Cross, The Dark Night of the Soul

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together

Thomas Merton, The Sign of Jonas

Barbara Holmes, Joy Unspeakable

Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

"Truth isn't in the conclusions, because the conclusions keep changing — in every field I know anything about. It's in the conversation. If you want to live in the truth, you have to know how to live in the conversation." — Parker J. Palmer

Episode 33: On the Brink of Silence: A Conversation with Parker J. Palmer (Part One)

Hosted by: Cassidy Hall

With: Kevin Johnson, Carl McColman

Guest: Parker J. Palmer

Date Recorded: July 13, 2018

Parker J. Palmer's lifetime of wisdom concerning silence and aging (part one of a two-part interview).

Poet, photographer, and memoirist Br. Paul Quenon, OCSO sat down to chat with Cassidy Hall this past July when she was visiting Gethsemani Abbey.

Author of several volumes of poetry including Unquiet Vigil: New and Selected Poems, Br. Paul is also the author of a newly published autobiography, In Praise of the Useless Life: A Monk's Memoir. His memoir is a delightful and charming story of monastic life not only as a forum for deep spiritual exploration, but also as the foundation for a life devoted to music, art, and especially poetry.

Cassidy and Brother Paul

Brother Paul entered monastic life in 1958, when he was only 17 years old — back before the reforms of the Second Vatical Council, when the life of a Trappist was even more austere than it is today. His novice master turned out to be Thomas Merton, who eventually became an inspiration to Brother Paul not only as a monk, but as a writer.

In their conversation, Cassidy and Brother Paul discuss his life story, his experience as a monk, as a writer, and as a lover of nature. He enthuses on his special love for the poet Emily Dickinson, and shares the poem of hers which convinced him that she was a mystic (#315). He also offers a 'sneak peek' of his current writing, sharing some poems he is currently writing. Through it all, in the heart of his rich and cultured life, silence has been his constant companion.

There is a kind of silence which comes from stilling the mind, and you can develop that capacity, how to not fight thoughts so much as set them aside... if you want to be free, free your mind... instead of fighting the thoughts you just stand above them like on a bridge and watch the water flow by... but then there is a kind of silence that descends upon you, and it's like the presence... it happens on its own, and that's really special. You may get that, or you may not get it... it's not a matter of looking for it, because if you're looking for it, than you're thinking of something, you have an expectation and you're dealing with your expectation. — Brother Paul Quenon, OCSO

Some of the resources and authors mentioned in this episode:

Paul Quenon, In Praise of the Useless Life: A Monk's Memoir

Paul Quenon, Unquiet Vigil: New and Selected Poems

Paul Quenon, Bells of the Hours

Paul Quenon, Afternoons with Emily

Paul Quenon, Monkswear

Paul Quenon, Laughter: My Purgatory

Paul Quenon, Terrors of Paradise

Paul Quenon with Judith Valente and Michael Bever, The Art of Pausing

Kathleen Norris, The Cloister Walk

Thomas Merton, The Seven Storey Mountain

Thomas à Kempis, The Imitation of Christ

Pico Iyer, The Art of Stillness: Adventures in Going Nowhere

Dianne Aprile, The Abbey of Gethsemani: Place of Peace and Paradox

John Eudes Bamberger, Thomas Merton: Prophet of Renewal

Kathleen Norris, Acedia and Me: A Marriage, Monks, and a Writer's Life

Emily Dickinson, The Complete Poems

Robert Morneau, A New Heart: Eleven Qualities of Holiness

Jessica Powers, The Selected Poetry

Rainer Maria Rilke, Selected Poetry

Guerric of Igny, Liturgical Sermons Volume One

Gregory of Naziansus, Festal Orations

Gregory of Nyssa, From Glory to Glory

Edward Abbey, Desert Solitaire

Gary Snyder, The Gary Snyder Reader

Fenton Johnson, Everywhere Home

The Grail Psalms: A Liturgical Psalter

The opposite of faith is indifference. — Br. Paul Quenon, OCSO

Filmmaker Patrick Shen, Brother Paul, and Cassidy Hall on the porch of Thomas Merton's hermitage, on the grounds of Gethsemani Abbey.

Episode 32: Silence and Poetry at Gethsemani Abbey: A Conversation with Paul Quenon, OCSO

Hosted by: Cassidy Hall

Cassidy Hall speaks with Trappist poet, photographer, and memoirist Br. Paul Quenon, OCSO.

It's summertime! How do you find silence amidst the droning of cicadas or locusts? What does it mean to be silent during the electric crackle of a late afternoon thunderstorm? How do we maintain our commitment to silence when we're juggling family vacations, back to school to-do lists, or even more lasting and significant life transitions? We have this myth that summer is a laid-back time, but often we find it carries its own intensity. Where do we find silence then?

In the middle of this change... the silence really stirs up a lot. So it helps me to find a balance, a rhythm, but it also doesn't allow me to run away from the fear, or the joy, or anything else. It's right there in my face. — Kevin Johnson

Cassidy shares a provocative quote from an essay by Mary Oliver in which she talks about how poetry needs to "rest in intensity," and uses this as her metaphor for navigating a very busy summer — a summer which she describes as being like a poem.

Kevin finds his summer to be both joyful and yet poignant, as one of his daughters prepares to go away to college for the first time. And yet this has been a time for him to find a new connection to his own practice of silence, and how an embodied sense of silence has felt like a friend reassuring him that everything is okay.

Carl, meanwhile explores how his relationship with silence this summer has been supported by two endeavors beyond his daily meditation practice: taking yoga classes with his wife, and writing poetry... just for joy.

I'm trying to look at my summer as a poem... just keep moving forward, just keep plugging away, but finding those pauses that often become shorter in times like this, that often become just the gaze out the window, or just the long stare into the coffee cup. — Cassidy Hall

We finish this episode with each member of the team briefly recounting the books we've been reading — and even share some insight into the t-shirts we were wearing the day we recorded this episode!

 

 

The silence is always there. And the question is, to what extent are we listening to it, or are we listening to whatever else is going on? — Carl McColman

Some of the resources and authors mentioned in this episode:

Mary Oliver, Winter Hours: Prose, Prose Poems, and Poetry

Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace is Every Step

Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace is Every Breath

Simone Weil, Love in the Void: Where God Finds Us

Parker Palmer, Let Your Life Speak: Listening to the Voice of Vocation

Austin Channing Brown, I'm Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness

Henry David Thoreau, Civil Disobedience and Other Essays

Anthony Storr, Solitude: A Return to the Self

Lewis Hyde, The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World

Owen Barfield, Saving the Appearances

J. R. R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings

C. S. Lewis, The Signature Classics

Charles Williams, Outline of Romantic Theology

Mary Oliver, Devotions: The Selected Poems

Michael Pollan, How to Change Your Mind: What the New Science of Psychedelics Teaches Us About Consciousness, Dying, Addiction, Depression, and Transcendence

Michael Pollan, The Omnivore's Dilemma

Carlos Castaneda,

Alan Watts,

Timothy Leary,

Joel F. Harrington, Dangerous Mystic: Meister Eckhart's Path to the God Within

Daniel Horan, The Franciscan Heart of Thomas Merton

Cassidy talks about fundraising for research to help fight the degenerative disease Friedreich's Ataxia. To learn more about this disease and to contribute to the fight against it, visit the Friedreich's Ataxia Research Alliance website, www.curefa.org.

And finally, here is a glimpse of some of the handpainted silk scarves crea...

Summer brings its own challenges and opportunities to bear on the human need for silence.

Unless you work in a library or a monastery, you may not intuitively associate "silence" and "work." But it doesn't have to be that way. In fact, our working lives have everything to gain if the workplace could become more hospitable to silence — and related mindfulness practices. Leah Weiss, PhD integrates Buddhist wisdom, mindfulness practice, and holistic management principles to articulate a vision of how it is possible to cultivate a more "sane" workplace. Dr. Weiss is a professor at Stanford University Graduate School of Business and is the author of the New York Times bestelling book How We Work: Live Your Purpose, Reclaim Your Sanity, and Embrace the Daily Grind.

I think of silence in two ways. I think of it as the literal having periods in the day, intermittently, and sometimes they're long, and sometimes they're not, of having literal quiet. But I also think of it as inner silence that we can access (or not), and the world around us can be noisy, but if we have this ability to touch in with our own clarity and mental spaciousness... that's another way to access silence, and you can do that no matter how loud it is on the city streets. — Leah Weiss, PhD

"Buddha" art by Leah's son Caleb

Weiss talks about how Tibetan Buddhism provided the forum for her own journey with silence — and how the experience of having a family (three small children) has deepened and clarified her understanding of the power of silence in her life. Arising out of her work with persons who are trauma survivors, or who have experienced toxic forms of silence (such as their voice being silenced), she offers insights not only about the blessings of silence, but also the importance of addressing honestly problems related to how individuals and organizations use silence in unhealthy ways as well. She muses on how community and connection are important "adjuncts" to the exploration of silence: by being able to talk to others, we more efficiently facilitate healing in our lives.

There's lots of people who are out there claiming all sorts of absurd stuff about how mindfulness is a silver bullet and if you teach people to meditate, all problems will be solved. I don't believe that. — Leah Weiss, PhD

Leah Weiss's book:

Leah Weiss, How We Work: Live Your Purpose, Reclaim Your Sanity, and Embrace the Daily Grind

What does it mean to create an environment where we can skillfully build positive silence, along with connection, support and healing? Not all of us are survivors of intense trauma, but all of us have traumas in our lives, in places where there is pain that we don't' want to touch, that hurts, and we need to have ways to deal with it. — Leah Weiss, PhD

Episode 30: Silence and Mindfulness at Work: A Conversation with Leah Weiss

Hosted by: Kevin Johnson

With: Cassidy Hall, Carl McColman

Guest: Leah Weiss

Date Recorded: July 12, 2018