Silence: A User's Guide, Volume Two

To learn to read a text for the portals of silence that are implicit in it is to gain a powerful tool for supporting and expanding one's silence, and to open the reader to the insight that ensues. The sort of reading proposed in this volume is both costly and rewarding. These pages invite readers once again to look at their own minds, to reflect on what is happening there, and to understand the essential role of silence for being human, and for living our own truth with one another. This is a book written out of wisdom, love, and experience. It is to be read slowly, deeply, and contemplatively. While highly informed, the scholarship folds into and out of an embodied, mindful practice. Reading demands that same practice. I know, for myself, this is a book I will return to again and again. Only Maggie Ross could have written it - as a genuine theological gift to us all. --Graham Ward, Regius Professor of Divinity, Christ Church, University of Oxford Maggie Ross continues her exploration of silence in this second volume, on the transfiguration of the world and of human beings in it through 'beholding.' She studies Old and New Testament ideas about silence, and presents a eucharistic liturgy focused on silent meditation. Readers will be challenged and encouraged in equal measure. --John Barton, Emeritus Oriel & Laing Professor of the Interpretation of Holy Scripture in the University of Oxford Maggie Ross brings an extraordinary combination of practicality, scholarship, and prayerful reflection to this remarkable book. Readers cannot fail to profit from its many explorations, which lead to a passionate, iconoclastic, and cheering affirmation of the centrality of silence in our meetings with God. --Diarmaid MacCulloch, Professor of the History of the Church, University of Oxford Maggie Ross is a seer, listener, and hearer of the first magnitude! Now she does it with that most ordinary and universal of spiritual disciplines--silence itself. Come see, listen, and hear with her, and watch her words silence you. --Richard Rohr, Center for Action and Contemplation, Albuquerque, New Mexico This second volume of Maggie Ross' s Silence: A User's Guide helps readers apply the lessons of the first and to introduce silence into their reading of spiritual classics, Old and New Testament scriptures, and the practice of liturgy (where silence is all too often lacking). As Maggie Ross points out, there is no fundamental opposition between words and silence, but to hear spiritually profound silence we must learn to read anew, letting the manifold meanings of key words resonate so as to open up the portal of silence . . . This is a book modestly capable of opening new worlds of understanding. --George Pattison, Professor of Divinity, University of Glasgow Silence: A User's Guide frames a graceful and fiercely generous invitation to gratitude, silence, and beholding. Maggie Ross in her wise and steadily practical way models Mary Oliver's simple directions in the poem Prayer 'Pay attention...patch a few words together...don't make them elaborate... just a doorway into thanks, and a silence in which another voice may speak.' I look forward to sharing this book with friends. --Donald Schell, Co-founder, All Saints Company Maggie Ross is an Anglican solitary. She lives in Oxford, England.