The Silence Monster

By Fr. Bjorn, OES
Many years ago, I found myself on retreat at a hermitage in the middle of the Texas desert. The superior of that community, during one of our spiritual direction chats, articulated to me that in order for her to truly reach a contemplative state, that there needed to be perfect environmental silence around her.

At the time, I agreed with her. Of course silence on an environmental level was necessary for contemplation. How could it happen any other way? Of course, I was still a very green 26 years old at the time, and had yet to truly experience the inner stillness of which she spoke.

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