One of the books which I have been reading for Lent is Sister Jeremy Hall OSB: Silence,Solitude,Simplicity: A Hermit's love affair with a noisy, crowded, and complicated world (2007, Liturgical Press, USA ISBN 13:978-08146-3185-0).
This is a wonderful book. Very thoughtful and full of prayer. Having lived as a hermit for over twenty years (and a religious sister for 68) Sister Jeremy is sensitive to words and what they mean just as she is sensitive to the world around her. Her message is this, that a monastic is not on some pedestal or behind a wall and away from the world; no, they are right there in the thick of that messiness which we call life. Each page is soaked in prayer and love and is exquisitely written. Her message to us all is that: we all need God.
Sister Jeremy defines spirituality as not simply the way we pray, any ascetic practises we might adopt, or any prayer or Bible study group we may belong to. " Spirituality is essentially our being - before- God and how this works out in all aspects of our lives: our self-understanding,our values,our relationships,our commitments,our prayer, our work, our leisure, our goals and the means we use to achieve them." So often we encounter individuals who describe themselves as spiritual and who go on to describe a compartment of their lives, an aspect but not the whole of their life. Sister Jeremy gently disabuses us of any such silly notions. We are simply spiritual beings and no part of our lives can be separated out in that way.
In the book we are taken to the desert and we are taught the value of silence and solitude as ways of improving our prayer life.
" The fruit of prayer is a deepening of faith. The fruit of faith is love, and the fruit of love is service. But to be able to pray we need silence; silence of the heart. And if we don't have that silence, we don't know how to pray." [ Mother Teresa]
I am still reading this book so I will have more to say in another post.
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