While still a teenager, Patrick Leigh Fermor made his way across Europe, as recounted in his classic memoirs, A Time of Gifts and Between the Woods and the Water. During World War II, he fought with local partisans against the Nazi occupiers of Crete. But in A Time to Keep Silence, Leigh Fermor writes about a more inward journey, describing his several sojourns in some of Europe’s oldest and most venerable monasteries. He stays at the Abbey of St. Wandrille, a great repository of art and learning; at Solesmes, famous for its revival of Gregorian chant; and at the deeply ascetic Trappist monastery of La Grande Trappe, where monks take a vow of silence. Finally, he visits the rock monasteries of Cappadocia, hewn from the stony spires of a moonlike landscape, where he seeks some trace of the life of the earliest Christian anchorites. More than a history or travel journal, however, this beautiful short book is a meditation on the meaning of silence and solitude for modern life. Leigh Fermor writes, “In the seclusion of a cell—an existence whose quietness is only varied by the silent meals, the solemnity of ritual, and long solitary walks in the woods—the troubled waters of the mind grow still and clear, and much that is hidden away and all that clouds it floats to the surface and can be skimmed away; and after a time one reaches a state of peace that is unthought of in the ordinary world.”
A Time of Gifts is the rich account of his adventures as far as Hungary, after which Between the Woods and the Water continues the story to the Iron Gates that divide the Carpathian and Balkan mountains.
In this fascinating, intelligent, and beautifully written book, Maitland describes how she began to explore this new love, spending periods of silence in the Sinai desert, the Scottish hills, and a remote cottage on the Isle of Skye.
"This is interpretation at its most daring and at its best" Widely respected scholar J. Richard Middleton suggests we have misread and misapplied the story of the binding of Isaac and explains that God desires more than silent obedience in ...
The first collection of King’s essential writings for high school students and young people A Time to Break Silence presents Martin Luther King, Jr.'s most important writings and speeches—carefully selected by teachers across a variety ...
Words of Mercury collects pieces from every stage of Fermor’s life, from his journey through Eastern Europe just before the outbreak of the Second World War—described in gorgeous, meditative detail—to his encounter with voodoo in ...
Explores the positive effects that practicing silence has on the body, soul, and mind, providing historical background and easy-to-follow instructions for a variety of Christian practices, including Benedictine rumination, psalm repetition, ...
The NIV is the world's best-selling modern translation, with over 150 million copies in print since its first full publication in 1978.
The introducers' passionate, provocative, and personal engagements with the spirituality and the language of the text make the Bible come alive as a stunning work of literature and remind us of its overwhelming contemporary relevance.
The opening of the book finds Leigh Fermor crossing the Danube—at the very moment where his first volume left off.
This is Patrick Leigh Fermor's spellbinding part-travelogue, part inspired evocation of a part of Greece's past.