A people poverty-stricken for quiet, we!

Poet M.C. Richards asks, "In the beginning was the word, but what preceded the word?" Her answer is: SILENCE

A people poverty-stricken for quiet, we! ... Probably never in the history of the world has there been as much noise and as little time in the day for quiet... Carlyle wrote, "Silence is the element in which great things fashion themselves," while Einstein believed that imagination is more important than knowledge. If like prayer, imagination needs silence in which to grow, are we not depriving our very souls with such world-wide noise pollution?

~ from "Peace and Quiet" by Daniel O'Hagan with thanks to Mary Kay Martin