Silent Fire: Bringing the Spirituality of Silence to Everyday Life

by James A. Connor

Book Overview

"In meditation the journey of an entire life will be manifest as a state of relaxation and a state of activity, forever a balancing act between sleeping and waking. In life, meditation will form a... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0812991028
• ISBN13: 9780812991024
• Release Date: February 2002
• Publisher: Crown Publishing Group (NY)
• Length: 209 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.5" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

Tenderness, Compassion, and Love

This is the profoundly spiritual memoir of a former Jesuit priest's interior journey. It is a hauntingly beautiful account filled with the pathos and gentle humor of a life fully realized -- a life that has come through the symbolic "fire" not irreparably burned but touched by its healing warmth. Graced by the author's intense awareness of holiness and human fraility, this book is filled with wisdom and grace. In prose that is accessible, lyrical, intelligent, and infinitely humane, Mr. Connor offers his readers the truths he has discovered: tenderness, compassion, and love. His use of poetry as epigrams that introduce each of his cycles of silence is brilliant. Edward Hirsch's poem "The Idea of the Holy," which precedes the prologue, and Adele Kenny's haiku, which introduces the first cycle, take the reader into the world of pure spirit: God's world, Connor's world, our world.

A Profound, Articulate, Witty Book on Silence

"Silent Fire" tells the story of one episode in Mr. Connor's life as a Jesuit priest. This tragedy provoked a deep crisis of faith, which led him to retreat at a cabin in the mountains in order to find the solitude to search for the meaning of this event. He uses the story of what he learned there as a way to discuss the role of solitude and the "numinous" in the spiritual and/or religious life.This is a very, very good book. The story is told in a very clear, direct, well organized way. It treats a deeply serious subject with respect and sensitivity, but stays very down-to-earth and even manages to be quite funny at times. The writing itself is downright lovely. His descriptions of the natural scene around his retreat are gorgeous, and display a real understanding of the natural world. He relates these scenes metaphorically to his spiritual story with real grace. This is prose poetry as good as Annie Dillard wrote.I highly, heartily recommend this book.

Delightful and Entertaining

Connor's account of a retreat to the Canadian outback is delightful and enlightening. Called as a priest in rural British Columbia to comfort the parents of an infant crushed to death by a boulder falling upon the rear of their passing car, Connor finds himself as unsettled and nonplused by the pathos and inscrutabilty of the event as the gieving parents. Seeking to regain his spiritual and emotional bearings, he finds refuge in a remote lake cabin where his slowly (and often comically) reawakened communion with the landscape and its few inhabitants clarify the continuum of suffering and serenity, death and life, and the salvation of replacing agitating, rational self-consciousness with accepting, spiritual self-awareness--with a truly contemplative life.Rendered in graceful prose, Connor's memoir ranges from exquisitely lyrical to warmly humorous to intellectually rigorous. The landscape and characters are vividly drawn, and the informing scholarship of contemplative literature and tradition is brought to bear in a natural, delightfully anecdotal way.

A spiritual book for our times

James Connor wears his spirituality and knowledge lightly. Both are profound, but in leading us along his own pathways of self- discovery, the gentle ex-priest offers invaluable and practical help for people confronting major crises in their lives. Connor's rollicking sense of humor and gift for storytelling help give easy access to his warm yet awesome universe. I have recommended this book to everyone I know, regardless of their faith. Don't miss the episode with the bat.