Lent 1: Invitation to silence, soltitude and human becoming by Vanessa Elston

In this first podcast of Lent 2012, Vanessa Elston starts this years Moot at St Mary Aldermary Lentern season with a reflection on the title 'An Invitation to silence, solitude and human becoming'. “As we grow up our minds grow more complex and more settled in their orbits.  We spend so much of our adult energies thinking, planning, worrying, trying to get ahead or stay afloat, that we lose touch with that natural intimacy with God deep within us.  The gift of silence gradually recedes in the face of the demands of daily life, so that when we do re-encounter contemplative prayer as adults, it may seem like a strange and inaccessible inner terrain.  With some effort, we can stop the outer noise.  Silent walks in the woods, Lenten and Advent quiet days at the local church, or a retreat at a monastery are wonderful ways of doing just that.  But stopping the inner noise is another matter.  Even when the outer world has been wrestled into silence, we still go right on talking, worrying, arguing with ourselves, day-dreaming, fantasizing.  To encounter those deeper reaches of our being, where our own life is constantly  flowing out of and back into the divine life; what first seems to be needed is some sort of interior on/off switch to tone down the inner talking as well."  (Cynthia Bourgeault, Centering Prayer and Inner Awakening)