Experiencing God's love through silent prayer.

Until recently, discernment has not been a high priority among Catholics. We have lived off rules of thumb in doctrine and practice, preferring assembly line religion to a personal and custom-made response to God from deep within our own lives. Contemplation and personal discernment are recognized today as normal developments in the spiritual life. Contemplation and discernment deal directly with the mysterious, incomprehensible God who appears among us and is experienced in himself (in contemplation) or in a given human situation (in discernment). Discernment asks us to be contempla­tives in action, in our human choices, finding the same God outside whom we discover in silent prayer. The challenge of identifying that Presence in such a way as to interpret the course of action we should take is a formidable one. This book begins a theology of discernment by reviewing the traditional theory that has come down to us from Scripture and the Fathers of the Desert. Seeing this body of teaching in its simplest lines, using the form as presented to us by Ignatius of Loyola, will provide a framework in which to critique the process in the light of present perspectives.

Much of our faith and practice is about words—preaching, teaching, talking with others. Yet all of these words are not enough to take us into the real presence of God. This book is an invitation to meet God deeply and fully through solitude and silence. This expanded edition includes a guide for groups to use for both discussion and practice.

A natural history rich in observation of the animal world and how humans participate in it, Silent Thunder is also a passionate story of scientist Katy Payne’s spiritual quest as she turns a keen eye on her role in this world. Starting with the story of her revolutionary discovery that elephants use infrasonic sounds—sounds below the range of human hearing—to communicate, Payne shares what she learned from her fascinating field research in Africa, research that reveals new insights into elephants’ social lives. When five of the elephant families she studies are the victims of culling, Payne’s approach to her research changes, as she fights valiantly to protect the elephants. The result of her research, and the touching insights gained from Africans she worked with and the elephants she studied, give a vivid impression of Payne’s view from the front lines of the natural preservation effort. Like Peter Matthiessen’s The Snow Leopard and the writings of Jane Goodall, Silent Thunder demonstrates how a commitment to all life can bring one’s own into a new focus.

Even a brief comparison with its canonical counterparts demonstrates that the Gospel of Luke is preoccupied with the power of spoken words; still, words alone do not make a language. Just as music without silence collapses into cacophony, so speech without silence signifies nothing: silences are the invisible, inaudible cement that hold the entire edifice together. Though scholars across diverse disciplines have analyzed silence in terms of its contexts, sources, and functions, these insights have barely begun to make inroads in biblical studies. Utilizing conceptual tools from narratology and reader-response criticism, this study is an initial exploration of largely uncharted territory – the various ways that narrative intersections of speech and silences function together rhetorically in Luke’s Gospel. Considering speech and silence to be mutually constituted in intricate and inextricable ways, Dinkler demonstrates that attention to both characters’ silences and the narrator’s silences helps to illuminate plot, characterization, theme, and readerly experience in Luke’s Gospel. Focusing on both speech and silence reveals that the Lukan narrator seeks to shape readers into ideal witnesses who use speech and silence in particular ways; Luke can be read as an early Christian proclamation – not only of the gospel message – but also of the proper ways to use speech and silence in light of that message. Thus, we find that speech and silence are significant matters of concern within the Lukan story and that speech and silence are significant tools used in its telling.

" From his unique perspective of friendship with many of the actors and actresses about whom he writes, silent film historian Anthony Slide creates vivid portraits of the careers and often eccentric lives of 100 players from the American silent film industry. He profiles the era’s shining stars such as Lillian Gish and Blanche Sweet; leading men including William Bakewell and Robert Harron; gifted leading ladies such as Laura La Plante and Alice Terry; ingénues like Mary Astor and Mary Brian; and even Hollywood’s most famous extra, Bess Flowers. Although each original essay is accompanied by significant documentation and an extensive bibliography, Silent Players is not simply a reference book or encyclopedic recitation of facts culled from the pages of fan magazines and trade periodicals. It contains a series of insightful portraits of the characters who symbolize an original and pioneering era in motion history and explores their unique talents and extraordinary private lives. Slide offers a potentially revisionist view of many of the stars he profiles, repudiating the status of some and restoring to fame others who have slipped from view. He personally interviewed many of his subjects and knew several of them intimately, putting him in a distinctive position to tell their true stories.

The story of Jesus of Nazareth has been called "the greatest story ever told," but what role do women play in that story? In No Longer Silent, author Susan Dehn Matthews attempts to highlight the women in the Gospels and provide the background behind those important women. Matthews starts by noting that women in the Gospels were deliberately disempowered in order to maintain their presumed dependence, both in Scripture and in society. She then goes to the give voice to the minds and hearts of the women of the gospels who have been marginalized or ignored altogether. As she writes, "Each women whose story is recounted here is remarkable precisely because, through the power of an encounter with Jesus, she discovered within herself the Divine energy that allowed her to offer her unique gift to the world." Some of the women Matthews writes about include: Elizabeth, Mary of Nazareth, Mary at the Wedding of Cana, The widowed mother of Nain, The woman accused, The mother of James and John, The sisters of Lazarus, The wife of Pilate, Mary Magdalene, and Joanna.