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Holy Silence: The Gift of Quaker Spirituality. By J. Brent Bill. Paraclete Press: Brewster, MA (Mailing address: PO Box 1568, Orleans MA 02653), 2005. Pp. 147. Paper. $14.95.
Sounding the Silence. By John Skinner. Liturgical Training Publications: 1800 North Hermitage Avenue, Chicago, Il 60622-1101, 2005. Pp. xw + 120. Paper. $10.95.
Everyone who prays faithfully has experienced silence. It may be the silence that comes upon us when we cannot frame words or when, recognizing our insignificance, we stop our mouths and, like Job, "disown what [we] have said, and repent in dust and ashes" (Job 42:6). More often it is the silence of God: "My God, I call by day, but you do not answer; by night, but I have no relief (Ps 22: 3). Silence is a problem for those who say they can no longer pray or that prayer seems useless. For others, silence is a blessing to be sought, for within the silence itself the voice of God may be heard. J. Brent Bill, a Quaker minister from Indiana, and John Skinner, an English Catholic layman, are among those who treasure silence. Their perspectives are different, and so are their approaches, but they both speak to our noise-infested hearts.
J. Brent Bill's book, Holy Silence: The Gift of Quaker Spirituality, is written by a Quaker for others who are not members of the Society of Friends. Using an anecdotal approach, interspersed with quotations from many Christian practitioners of silent prayer, not all of them Friends, he initiates his readers into "Holy Silence" and gives them practical indications on different aspects of this kind of prayer. The material is divided into six chapters, with a further twentyfive pages or so of supplemental materials. He provides a built-in study and practice guide in the form of "Quietude Queries." The chapters build rather easily, one on another. In the first chapter, Bill speaks of silence as "the Quaker Sacrament." In those that follow, he develops silence as a basic attitude of life, addresses the question of how to find it in the midst of noisy...