Fr. Laird helps the reader engage the realization we LIVE IN God’s presence; we don’t need to seek God but to nurture our awareness of God’s presence.  His use of scripture and the writings of contemplative saints adds layers of understanding and experience to the contemplative posture we can all cultivate in our prayer life.  There is irony in how Fr. Laird’s extensive academic knowledge of the desert mothers and fathers as well as teachings of saints of all centuries are shared in a manner to encourage the reader to simply settle into our hearts, to quiet our minds and be in the presence of the God who loves us always.

This book distills the concept of quieting the chatter and clatter of our minds to turning off the videos our minds tend to turn on.  At times, Fr. Laird refers to these videos as the “interior soap opera” and “constant chatter of the cocktail party going on inside our heads.”  Encouraging us to turn off the noise, even connoting to the action of turning off a television, Fr. Laird seeks to draw us into the place where we are “hidden in Christ.”

While Into the Silent Land considers some of the practical aspects of the contemplative’s prayer, it also moves into some of the challenges often faced even after one has spent much time nurturing the spiritual practice of silence and contemplation.  “The present moment”, our woundedness and the distractions we encounter are discussed in light of this call to our “silent land” as Fr. Laird’s efforts lead to nurturing this interior silence.  His writing has a clarifying effect on the struggles experienced by the contemplative.

My experience with Into the Silent Land was certainly affected by the timing in which I encountered the book.  My spiritual director wondered if the book would be helpful to me considering the season of my life.  I was on the cusp of a move and shared how the process of resettling tended to affect my quiet with God for longer than I wanted to endure.  Especially helpful was the imagery of the contemplative as a mountain unaffected by tumultuous weather.  “When the mind is brought to stillness we see we are the mountain and not the changing patterns of weather appearing on the mountains.”  This imagery, and much more of the book, anchored me in my practice through the most chaotic weeks of relocating.

Fr. Laird’s references to other material offers the reader a substantial bibliography of other readings on living the contemplative life.

Kathy Reiter resides in College Station, TX and may be reached at kathy.reiter@live.com.