Silence

 

silence

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I opted for quite a lot of it on a retreat/course on Holy Island, Arran last week.  The Centre for World Peace and Health is a place where people of all faiths and none, can find some P & H and help to spread same.  You can attend a course, volunteer, just book in as a guest.  You can pop across for an hour or so by means of the open motor boat that crosses from Lamlash.  I’m in the middle of writing an account of the entire amazing experience so bits of that may appear piecemeal on this blog. 

I spent several hours a day in silence, in company and alone.  There was no access to email, a poor mobile phone signal and a payphone which I used only once.  No alcohol, no radio, no newspapers.  This made 5 days feel like 10 – in a good way.  Since returning, I have found it hard to know what to say – silenced by silence!  (Family and friends to whom I have babbled incoherently about it, probably have quite a different view!)

Another kind of silence was broken on Sunday at St Mary’s cathedral in Glasgow when Bishop Gene Robinson celebrated and preached.  I was part of the large congregation and proud to be there.  Some of his words have been reported in the press, mostly accurate I’d say.  His conviction that the church would some day be fully inclusive and welcoming to all was not only on behalf of ‘gay clerics’ as one paper said but on behalf of any person or group currently marginalised.  If this interest you, you can not only read all about but watch and listen to clips from the service and from an interview with Bishop Gene on www.thurible.net