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Continuing the conversation that began with Episodes 1 and 2, we now turn to the question of how our relationship to silence can evolve over time.

We take a closer look at how encountering silence has nurtured our faith in God — and how monasteries, churches, museums, the wilderness, and even a documentary film has played a role in our lives as each of us has “pursued” silence (or, perhaps we should say, how silence has pursued us).

We explore how silence has been a teacher to each of us, teaching us the ways of silence, teaching us to simply “let silence be” and approach it in a spirit of humility and openness. We discuss the limitations of academic scholarship (at least in terms of relating to silence), the challenge of moving beyond dualisting thinking when relating to silence, and how essential art and poetry have been to us when it comes to our evolving relationship with silence — and our shared recognition that there is a deep intimacy between silence and beauty. We also look at silence as the center around which aesthetics, theology, and liturgy all revolve — each points back to the silence, which in turn “hosts” each of these ways of human knowing and expression.

Silence for me has always been wrapped up with the question of the Divine. — Kevin Johnson

It’s so interesting to engage with a material that is not a material. It’s like clothing a bodiless body. you can’t do it, but we’re forever trying. That’s why this keeps constantly pointing me back to God because it’s another aspect of my life that certainty always fails me. It’s in the unknowing that I know. It’s in my extreme amount of doubt that my faith is. It’s the tension pieces, the paradox pieces. — Cassidy Hall

Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:

• Patrick Shen (director), In Pursuit of Silence (Documentary Film)
• Tilden Edwards, Embracing the Call to Spiritual Depth
• Gerald G. May, Will and Spirit: A Contemplative Psychology
• Martin Laird, Into the Silent Land: A Guide to the Christian Practice of Contemplation
• Elias Marechal, Tears of An Innocent God: Conversations on Silence, Kindness and Prayer
• Alex Lu, Soundtrack for In Pursuit of Silence
• Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters of Rainer Maria Rilke, 1892-1910
• Hans Urs Von Balthazar, The Glory of the Lord: A Theological Aesthetics
• Karl Rahner, Encounters with Silence
• Bernard McGinn, ed., The Essential Writings of Christian Mysticism
• Evagrius Ponticus, The Praktikos & Chapters on Prayer
• Christian Bobin, The Eighth Day: Selected Writings

Carl quotes Acts 17:28: “In Him we live and move and have our being” — which comes from a sermon of Saint Paul, who in turn is quoting the pagan poet Epimenides.

The words are printed on the page just as the space between the ink is the page. It’s all the page. There is a real presence of silence in the most ear-splitting noise. — Carl McColman

Kevin Johnson is a university professor, writer, speaker, and retreat leader based in Connecticut.

Cassidy Hall is a writer, photographer, and filmmaker based in Los Angeles.

Carl McColman is an author, catechist, and retreat leader based in Atlanta.

Episode 4: Encountering Silence As Adults
Hosted by: Carl McColman
With: Cassidy Hall and Kevin Johnson
Date Recorded: October 23, 2017

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How do we encounter silence in our teen years? Alone, or with others? In the woods, or at a church? With a sense of ecstasy, or perhaps even a healthy dose of “adolescent angst”?

In this episode we continue the conversation about “meeting” silence in the days of our youth, this week focusing on our adolescence. Like in the previous episode, such encounters carry a variety of meanings and invitations into deeper reflection, including:

• The relationship between silence, nature, solitude, and spirit (Spirit);
• How silence can emerge out of even a noisy time in one’s life;
• How silence transcends religion and spirituality to be a universal gift;
• How silence can meet us even in unintended ways and settings;
• The surprising way silence comes to us in mystical ways — and how even the most exalted mystical “experience” seems to carry its own challenges or difficulties;
• Pondering the relationship between silence and questions.

I was immediately filled with questions, and I was immediately filled with, ‘Why? What did I just do? Why did I do it?’ and looking back upon that, to me, that was God in that experience — the questions; because I’ve always been a curious person, because God was in that mystery and the silence and the loneliness of that moment. — Cassidy Hall

Some of the resources and authors we mention in this episode:

• Augustine, The Confessions of Saint Augustine
• Carl McColman, The Aspiring Mystic: Practical Steps for Spiritual Seekers

Some of the albums Carl loved as a teenager include:

• Elton John, Greatest Hits
• Emerson Lake & Palmer, Self-Titled
• Genesis, Foxtrot
• Renaissance, Ashes Are Burning
• Yes, Tales From Topographic Oceans

And while we didn’t mention them in this episode, our favorite monastic author and favorite documentary on silence always deserve a shout out:

• Thomas Merton, Dialogues with Silence
• Patrick Shen (director), In Pursuit of Silence

It’s beyond words, there’s no way to describe this, but it really did make me feel that the world was a lot weirder than I thought it was, for the very first time, and I realized that my categories didn’t make sense… — Kevin Johnson

Kevin Johnson is a university professor, writer, speaker, and retreat leader based in Connecticut.

Cassidy Hall is a writer, photographer, and filmmaker based in Los Angeles.

Carl McColman is an author, catechist, and retreat leader based in Atlanta.

Episode 2: Encountering Silence In Adolescence
Hosted by: Kevin Johnson
With: Cassidy Hall and Carl McColman
Date Recorded: October 10, 2017

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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.