Outside Reading: Silence

One of the reasons I took this course was because of the personal strife I’ve encountered trying to reconcile my religious beliefs with the constant silence I’ve felt in my life.  I wanted to explore notions of the sacred as a personal endeavor to conceptualize my faith life.  I’m currently involved in two other classes which deal with religious faith--one of which is my senior sem class.  I’m writing a film analysis on Martin Scorsese’s Silence and how its themes convey a larger narrative on the complexities of faith. One of the essays I read while fleshing out my ideas talked about the idea that God speaks through the silence which the main character of the film Rodrigues endures during his pain and suffering.  While the idea of the sacred journey is much more abstract in this story line, the idea of the wilderness is present in this story line especially as the cinematography suggests the notion that the main character is in the wilderness, free of social ordering and left only with reliance on the voice of God.  It was this film which provoked my interest in seriously grappling with faith and its ability to thrive in the same wilderness which Rodrigues is subjected to.

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