From Karen Armstrong's Introduction
"I sympathize with Leigh Fermor, when he remarked one day to the Abbot what a blessed relief it was to refrain from talking all day long. "Yes." the Abbot replied; "in the outside world, speech is gravely abused." Our world is even more noisy than it was in the 1950's, when Leigh Fermor wrote this book: piped music and mobile phones jangle ceaselessly, and silence and solitude are shunned as alien and unnatural. We expect instant communication and seek knowledge at the click of a mouse. We are also living at a time of competing certainties and religious stridency. It is important to realize that there are more profound and authentic ways of being religious. Very few of us can be contemplative nuns or monks, but we can learn to appreciate their way of experiencing the sacred and integrate something of this gentle, silent discipline into our own lives. This gem of a book can help us to do just that."
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