Prayer and contemplation as the path to selflessness isn't exactly the first social and political prescription people think of these days. "Let us start from one admitted fact," writes Merton: "If prayer, meditation and contemplation were once taken for granted as central realities of human life everywhere, they are so no longer. They are regarded, even by believers, as somehow marginal and secondary: what counts is getting things done."

How then does the hermit, the one in the wilderness, relate his or her contemplative efforts to a world interested only in action and results?

Bill Porter, in his book Road to Heaven: Encounters with Chinese Hermits, wrote of his search for Taoist hermits in the mountains of northern China. He was told they were wiped out but finally found someone who said, "Of course there are still hermits in China. But when you meet them, you won't know them. You won't find them unless they want to be found."

Slowly Porter discovered them (or they him). These recluses shared with the Desert Fathers - and all hermits everywhere - the qualities of simplicity, lack of artifice, common sense, good will, ordinariness and delightful good humor. Their goal in life was to reduce desire and lead quiet lives: not a bad idea in this mad, mad, materialist world. As one of the hermits said, "You can't be in a hurry. You have to be prepared to devote your whole life to your practice. This is what's meant by religion. It's not a matter of spending money. You have to spend your life."

Traditionally such hermits or shamans are regarded as defenders of society against darkness. The hermit is actually the protector of the society he doesn't live within. Imagine a society where hermits, recluses and contemplatives are valued and supported as important members of society. Yet I hear Americans, myself included, asking, "How can someone who eats and sleeps and sits there all day be any good to society?"

A partial answer comes from an ancient Chinese model. Throughout Chinese history there has been a dialectic between public service and withdrawal, between the hermit and the activist. "Seclusion and public service were seen as the dark and light of the moon, inseparable and complementary · Hermits and officials were often the same people at different times of their lives. And officials who never experienced tranquillity and concentration of spirit in pursuits other than fame or fortune were not esteemed in China" (Porter, ibid).

The aim of this dialectic between public service and withdrawal was always the application of the principles of the Tao in human affairs. The conflicting pulls I have felt throughout my life between "getting things done" and the urge to withdraw have been seen by some societies not as contradictory but complementary.

To see the hermit and the activist as different parts of the same person's movement back and forth from personal to social should be easy for well-intentioned Americans with some sense of public good. But to see the hermit as an activist, his or her withdrawal and passivity as activity, requires a leap of mind and faith altogether radical.

My reading and contemplation over the years have convinced me that there must be a place for the life of the total recluse, the hermit who gets nothing done. This kind of total withdrawal is unappreciated, even hated, by Americans. As a people we are still too empirical, too practical. We are all yin and no yang. We need to work our way toward an understand that contemplatives, although we never see them and they never "do" anything at all, can become the defenders of the society in which they don't live, the guardians and protectors of the public good.

This is a very old idea; so old, in fact, that it is new.

The Foundation, "A Call to Silence" has since 1995 invited people of all traditions, cultures and religions to take part in a network of meditation, and together meditate for peace on earth and the healing of our planet. A week of silence is celebrated every year during the first week of May. During this week people from all over the world are connected to this network of meditation.

Now the Foundation invites everyone to close the year 1999 and the 20^th century with a Novena of Silence, and so to enter in silence a new millennium, a new era. This silence will be our contribution to that colorful symphony of sounds that will no doubt accompany the turn of the century.

We have become people of the clock. In the past we found if sufficient when the clock tower struck the hour and the half-hour. These days we measure time in nanoseconds. We live our lives in a fine pressurized container of count and measure. This pressure box, in which we suffocate, is of our own making. We are lucky that there are moments when we can still escape from this "time box." At these times we give ourselves permission to dwell, to be quiet, and to step out of that wheel of turning time. This novena gives us the space to move out of time and enables us to concentrate and meditate on the reasons why we live, on life itself, and our connection to the other forms of life. We realize that we are just mortals for we see our place in history in perspective. In a novena, we can also ask for special favors, for asking declares what we consider important at the start of a new era.

The Novena of Silence will be held from

December 22^nd through December 31^st, 1999.

Participation as an individual is possible but also by organizing a meditation group or by bringing the novena to the attention of meditation centers, church groups, institutions etc and interesting them in taking part in it. Anyone can find a form to celebrate this Novena of Silence. For some, it will consist of a period of time daily spent in silence and solitude. One group that holds meditation evenings once a month has planned to start the novena with a Light Celebration that will include music, singing, dance, contemplation and silence. During the novena there will be evenings of meditation at homes of the members. The novena will close with a 24-hour Light-Watch starting on December 31, 1999 at twelve noon and ending on January 1, 2000 at twelve noon.

One may also celebrate a novena on one's own by burning a candle in the window every evening and spiritually connecting with all the people who are in involved with the novena throughout the world.

For information about the Novena of Silence, contact:

A Call to Silence Foundation

De Haar 144

NL 2261 ZA Leidschendam, The Netherlands

Phone/Fax" +31 70 301 00 69

Readings in Spirituality - Annotated Bibliography by Sharon Jeanne Smith 31pp. $10.00

Solitude & Union: A Select Bibliography on the Hermit Way of Life by Cecilia W. Wilms 26pp. $8.00

Commentary on Canon 603 from "The Law of Consecrated Life" by Jean Beyer SJ, 1988 Translated from the French by W. Becker, 1992 10pp. $3.00

Hermits: The Juridical Implications of Canon 603 by Helen L. Macdonald, Researcher Novalis: St. Paul University, Ottawa, ONT 24pp. $8.00

Notes to Guide the Beginning Hermit by A Hermit of Mercy 15pp. $5.00

Statutes for Hermits by The Bishops of France (1989) 12 pp. $4.00

Discernment Survey 1996 6pp. $2.00

Raven's Rest

Retreatants welcome to schedule time after April 1, 2000 at Raven's Rest (a fully furnished apartment with private entrance) here at Still Wood. Offers opportunity to experience solitude and silence on a forested mountainside in the Smokies. Spiritual Direction available upon request. Suggested offering $20.00 per day includes meals. For further information, contact:

Book Notices and Recommendations

Landscapes of the Soul, A Spirituality of Place by Robert M. Hamma. A new awareness of place is growing in those who are serious about spiritual practice. This book helps us pay attention to how ordinary places shape and form our spiritual consciousness and to reflect on what they have to teach us. Ave Maria Press, Notre Dame, IN; 1999, Paper, 160 pp. $9.95.

Living on the Border of the Holy - Renewing the Priesthood of all by L. William Countryman. By "priest" I mean any person who lives in the dangerous, exhilarating, life-giving borderlands of human existence, where the everyday experience of life opens up to reveal glimpses of the HOLY - and not only lives there but comes to the aid of others who are living there. So begins this rich and provocative volume. Morehouse Publishing, Harrisburg, PA; 1999, Paper, 205 pp. $17.95.

Beyond Religion, 8 Alternative Paths to the Sacred by David N. Elkins, Ph.D. An exceptional book that powerfully reveals that the true nature of spirituality is a pervasive, relentless river alive within the human spirit and expressed with unlimited variety in the world. Quest Books, Theosophical Publishing House, Wheaton, IL. 1998, Paper, 304 pp. $16.95

Being Priest to One Another by Michael Dwinell. In a series of provocative meditations, Dwinell interprests 24 startling images of "being priest". Triumph Books, Ligouri, MO, 1993. Paper, 198 pp. $10.95

Basking in His Presence, A Call to the Prayer of Silence by Bill Volkman. "A call to practice contemplative prayer, to be still, to turn within, to come home." Dickinson Press, Grand Rapids, MI, 1996, Paper, 152 pp.