Yes, I missed another Wednesday post. I was planning to write something on politics, but the words just wouldn't come. Sometimes it feels like there is just too much noise in the world, especially on the internet. What good does it do?
"Into Great Silence" is a movie about a place, the Grande Chartreuse monastery of the Carthusian order, where the noise is consciously left behind in order to draw close to all that really matters. The documentary opens with the passage from the First Book of Kings where God appears to Elijah not as a mighty wind, earthquake, or fire, but as "a light silent sound." Fittingly, it contains none of commentary and analysis typical of documentaries. Instead, we simply spend nearly three hours experiencing the lives of these monks. It is not a life most of us would choose to live, but we should be grateful that some do, bearing witness to the truth that lies beyond the noise.
"Why do you babble so much about me? So much time and energy, for what purpose? What more is there to understand about us than love? You think too much and feel too little. You talk too much and love too little. It is the curse of your consciousness. You can see enough to open the door, but not enough to find your way through it. Close your eyes and the path will be illuminated soon enough."