The Taste of Silence

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 a