The Taste of Silence - by Bieke Vandekerckhove (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

At nineteen Bieke Vandekerckhove fell ill. The diagnosis was devastating: the fatal motor neuron disease ALS. Life expectancy: two to five years. So what did she do with the paltry bit of life that was left?

By force of circumstance she was led to Saint Lioba Convent in Egmond-Binnen. There she learned Benedictine spirituality and to pray the psalms, which influenced her life for good. Three years later she learned that her illness had gone into remission but that it could flare up again at any time. She has been living with ALS for twenty years now. She is married and has two assistants to help her as necessary.

Ten years ago she found the silence of Zen. This encounter also proved decisive. The Taste of Silence reflects what she experienced, saw, and tasted in the stillness of life: "Benedictine spirituality and Zen Buddhism became the two lungs through which I breathe."

Review Quotes

"The author's experiences prove that Benedictine spirituality can be a healing grace. Many of us have had to face an impenetrable wall. Contemplative prayer and meditation can bring down that wall-helping us to endure the winter of our life and move forward to the hope inherent in spring."Thomas J. Rillo, Saint Meinrad's Benedictine Oblate Newsletter

An insightful and absorbing memoir. Written poetically, the chapters-some only a page and a half-evoke the connectedness that Vandekerckhove felt toward the divine.
Diane Scharper, National Catholic Reporter

"Learn to be still and learn to do nothing and learn to wait. The secret of those who became giants always lay in this: they were prepared for the long haul." --Thus wrote poet Henriette Roland Holst. It is what Bieke Vandekerckhove wanted to learn--living with an incurable disease, she had to. Listening, meditating, persevering in the silence, she became one of the giants, and she wrote a book that consoles.
Huub Oosterhuis, Dutch theologian, poet, author, liturgist, and ecumenist

Bieke Vandekerckhove's story shows the way spirituality and religion get synchronized in the paradox classically stated by Polonius in Hamlet: 'by indirections find directions out.
Patrick Henry, On Being blog

Life is full of trials--yet sometimes we may suddenly perceive an eternal light in the midst of the worst tribulations. There is much in life that does not make any sense, so we need witnesses whose life says: and yet! and who keep on smiling through their tears. This book is such a smile, compelling in its authenticity.
Benoît Standaert, Benedictine Monk of Saint Andrew's Abbey in Bruges, Belgium, Author of Sharing Sacred Space: Interreligious Dialogue as Spiritual Encounter