Photo by Cassidy Hall, from The Cloisters station on the A Train in Manhattan. Poetry, of course, by Thomas Merton.
Encountering Silence releases our first episode tomorrow!
Category Archives: Episodes
Pilot Episode: Meet the Hosts of Encountering Silence
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 33:32 — 30.7MB)
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Meet Kevin Johnson, Cassidy Hall, and Carl McColman. We are the hosts and co-creators of Encountering Silence.
This podcast emerged from our friendship, the friendship of three people with a shared interest in the many important ways silence makes a difference our lives — looking at silence in terms of spirituality, of health, of art and aesthetics, of psychology and wisdom. Silence matters, and yet it is a difficult topic to talk about, let alone to deeply and truly understand.
We realize that “talking about silence” is paradoxical, and yet we think it’s also vital, especially given how increasingly noisy our society is. We hope that this pilot episode represents the first few words in an ongoing conversation about what silence is, why silence matters, and how we can all learn to encounter silence more truly and deeply.
Some of the resources we mention in this episode:
- Martin Buber, I and Thou
- Audre Lorde, Your Silence Will Not Protect You
- Jean-Luc Marion, God Without Being
- Thomas Merton, Selected Essays
- Maggie Ross, Silence: A User’s Guide, Volume 2: Application
- Patrick Shen (director), In Pursuit of Silence documentary film
Our dream for this podcast is to make connections — with people everywhere who love silence, who seek more silence in our lives, who wish to understand and appreciate more fully and be able to speak of the gift of silence in our lives more beautifully. We hope you will connect with us, not only by subscribing to the podcast through iTunes or Google Play, but also by connecting with us via our Facebook Page or Twitter. Thank you.
Kevin Johnson is a university professor, writer, speaker, and retreat leader based on the Connecticut shoreline.
Cassidy Hall is a writer, photographer, and filmmaker based in Los Angeles.
Carl McColman is a contemplative author, speaker, retreat leader, and spiritual companion based in Atlanta.
Episode 0: Pilot Episode
Hosted by: Carl McColman
With: Cassidy Hall and Kevin Johnson
Date Recorded: September 25, 2017
“Coming Soon” Teaser Trailer
Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 1:25 — 1.3MB)
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Coming Soon: A Podcast on All Things Silence.
This little snippet of audio bliss comes from the very first day that the Encountering Silence team — Cassidy Hall, Kevin Johnson, and Carl McColman — actually recorded what would become our “pilot episode” (scheduled to be released next month, December 2017). Here we are still finding our way around our respective microphones, and discovering our collective “voice” as the hosts of our new podcast. This may not tell you a lot about the content of our podcast — for that, let’s just say if it has something to do with silence, sooner or later we hope to explore it — but this will, we hope, give you a glimpse into our process — as co-explorers of silence, and perhaps even more important, as friends.
What can we say about our podcast? We are drawn to the mystery and spirituality of silence. We believe silence is beautiful, is peaceful, is conducive (and indeed essential) to both mental and physical health, and has an important role to play in our individual and communal search for meaning, for identity, for relationship, and even for love. We are all Christians (2 Catholics and 1 Episcopalian), so we also believe that silence helps us to respond to God, and indeed that silence is a gift from God. But this podcast is not just a “Christian” or even “religious” podcast: we are all drawn to interfaith dialogue and interspirituality, to mysticism and contemplation, to art and poetry, to the silence of the forest and of the library, the silence of the cathedral and the desert, the silence of a winter night and a sleeping child. Silence touches our lives in so many ways, and yet we live in a culture that has seemed to banish silence from so many corners of our life. What does that mean? And how will the increasing noisiness of our world impact our lives: our sense of serenity, our ability to listen to one another, our sense of purpose and identity and self-worth? So many questions, so many areas for exploration and discovery. If any of this resonates with you, we hope that you will join us — let us be together, for we all are Encountering Silence.