Dear Friends ~ I wish to speak about joy. In this season there is plenty to be joyful about: crisp mornings, mist rising from the river, trees bright with autumn glory, the faces of children sticky with caramel apples. Yet even as the scent of cinnamon lingers in the air, and grandchildren snuggle in for a fireside story on a gently darkening evening, we know that all is not well in our world. The trouble we are in as an Earth community is severe and seemingly inexorable. This is when joy ripens beyond a heartfelt response of wonder and gratitude and deepens into an act of resistance: a fierce joy rooted in humus, in sorrow, in edges, in life Herself, in the One whom Nan Merrill called the Beloved. This is the joy that enables us to live fearlessly and robustly, to set out boldly to make a road by walking, to laugh immeasurably though we have considered all the facts. To invoke this joy we turn to the soul-criers: the storytellers, sages, and poets who bear witness to the truth that there is always more going on than we can know.
This, dear friends, is the mission and vocation of the Friends of Silence Letter: to bring you the voices who will sing joy into your soul and make it possible for you and all you love to thrive even in dark times. This is the issue in which we appeal to you to keep the Letter coming into the world. Please use the link on our website to send us a donation. May you ever live in joy. ~ Lindsay
Bede Griffiths once said to me,
"What is essential is to keep the heart always open to beauty."
What could be harder in an age like ours? And yet, it is just because our age is so harsh and brutal that it is more than ever essential to create around us, in our homes and offices and meeting places, a sacred environment. To do so is to awaken the poet in each of us, the poet and the lover of life and beauty. Creating a sacred environment is not complicated; it just requires concentration and the constant reminder that the one important thing in your life is to keep your heart open to Divine Love.