Our Lady of Silence

If we had a keen vision of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow or the squirrel’s heart beat, and we should die of the roar which lies on the other side of silence.  As it is, the quickest of us walk about well-wadded with stupidity.   ~George Eliot

Ave Maria!  Now there was one who could see and hear what most of us miss because we are so "well-wadded with stupidity" -- Mary!  Stupidity, one dictionary says, is a poor ability to understand or to profit from experience.  How unlike Our Lady, who kept all things in her heart (see Luke 2:19, 51), pondering them the same way that she carried her precious Child in her womb, "with love beyond all telling."  Silence was her friend and her teacher, her wisdom and her strength.  Hers was "the silence of eternity, interpreted by love" (John Greenleaf Whittier).  We have no record that the Mother of Christ was present on that glorious Easter morn when her Beloved Son rose from the dead.  Yet surely, in the stillness of her heart, she heard His footsteps as He quietly walked the earth again, those once lacerated, bloody feet now beautiful and whole, bringing glad tidings and good news, announcing peace and salvation and saying "Your God is King!" (Isaiah 52:7) 

Our Lady of Silence, pray for us!

Let us ask the Virgin Mary to teach us the secret of silence that becomes praise, of recollection that is conducive to meditation, of love for nature that blossoms in gratitude to God.  ~Pope Benedict XVI

Melt the frozen, warm the chill...

Photography by Ann L. Krumrein

My sister, Ann L. Krumrein, is an amazing woman! Therefore she is also an amazing photographer and artist! She has a keen sense of vision unlike the one most of us possess. She sees things that we don't see -- and she sees through them and into them and beyond them. When I think of Annie, I think of this quote by George Eliot:

"If we had a keen vision and feeling of all ordinary human life, it would be like hearing the grass grow and the squirrel's heart beat, and we should die of that roar which lies on the other side of silence."

That's my Annie. She dies a lot day after day -- and in the process brings forth abundant life! Thank you, dear Lord, for the precious gift of my amazing, beautiful sister!