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Readings on Solitude and Silence
LIFEWITHOUTSPACEMAKESNOSENSE
LIFE WITHOUT SPACE MAKESNOSENSE
LIFE WITHOUT SPACE MAKES NO
SENSE
In solitude I get rid of my scaffolding: no friends to talk with, no
telephone calls to make, no meetings to attend, no music to entertain, no
books to distract, just me-naked, vulnerable, weak, sinful, deprived,
broken-nothing. It is this nothingness that I have to face in my solitude,
a nothingness so dreadful that everything in me wants to run to my friends,
my work, and my distractions so that I can forget my nothingness and make
myself believe that I am worth something. But that is not all. As soon as
I decide to stay in my solitude, confusing ideas, disturbing images, wild
fantasies, and weird associations jump about in my mind like monkeys in a
banana tree. Anger and greed begin to show their ugly faces. I give long,
hostile speeches to my enemies and dream lustful dreams in which I am
wealthy, influential, and very attractive-or poor, ugly, and in need of
immediate consolation. Thus I try again to run from the dark abyss of my
nothingness and restore my false self in all its vainglory.
Are, however, not completely alone, Christ is with us.
We enter into solitude first of all to meet our Lord and to be with him and
him alone. Our primary task in solitude, therefore, is not to pay undue
attention-to-the many faces which assail us, but to keep, the eyes of our
mind and heart on him who is our divine savior. Only in the context of
grace can we face our sin; only in the place of healing do we dare to show
our wounds; only with a single-minded attention to Christ can we give up
our clinging fears and face our own true nature. As we come to realize
that it is not we who live, but Christ who lives in us, that he is our true
self, we can slowly let our compulsions melt away and begin to experience
the freedom of the children of God. And then we can look back with a smile
and realize that we aren’t even angry or greedy more.
Solitude is thus the place of purification and transformation, the place of
the great struggle and the great encounter. Solitude is not simply a means
to an end. Solitude is its own end. It is the place where Christ remodels
us in his own image and. frees us from the victimizing compulsions of the,
world. Solitude is the place of our salvation. Hence, it is the place
where we want to lead all who are seeking the light in this dark world.
St. Anthony spent twenty years in isolation. When he left it he took his
solitude with him and shared it with all who came to him. Those who saw
him described him as balanced, gentle, and caring. He had become so Christ-
like, so radiant with God’s love, that his entire being was ministry.
Silence is an indispensable discipline in the spiritual life. Ever since
James described the tongue as a “whole wicked world in itself” and silence
as putting a bit into the horse’s mouth (James 3:3, 6) Christians have
tried to practice silence as the way to self-control. Clearly silence is a
discipline needed in many different situations: in teaching and learning,
in preaching and worship, in visiting and counseling. Silence is a very
concrete, practical, and useful discipline in all our ministerial tasks.
It can be seen as a portable cell taken with us from the solitary place
into the midst of our ministry. Silence is solitude practiced in action.
—From The Way of the Heart
by Henri Nouwen
The “Sifting Silence”
You may be someone who finds silence quite natural. You may enjoy being on
your own. But not everyone finds it so easy to get into, and for others of
you it may be quite a struggle. If that is the case, don’t give up – you
are not a failure!
If you are spending time alone and in silence for the first time, it is
important to realize that the kind of experience I have just described is
not unusual or wrong. If our activity and business has been a way of
avoiding deeper questions and concerns, then we may feel, for a while at
least, as if we are standing in the path of a dam that has burst. We are
often so cluttered inside with the accumulations of years of hopes and
fears, plans and ideas, light and darkness – that the Holy Spirit has to
first of all clear a space. In the Quaker tradition the presence of the
Holy Spirit within us is described as a ‘sifting silence’. It is
disturbing to experience it, but this clearing work is deeply loving. Just
because we feel in turmoil it does not mean, that God is too! The neglect
of our inner world may mean that a lot of suppressed energy is locked up
within us. Its strength and vigor can be alarming when we meet it for the
first time.
— From The Center of Quiet
by David Runcorn
The desert fathers (a protest movement in the 4th 5th century AD against
the “worldliness” in the Church) spoke of busyness as “moral Laziness.”
Busyness can also be an addictive drug, which is why its victims are
increasingly referred to as ‘workaholics.’ Busyness acts to repress our
inner fears and personal anxieties, as we scramble to achieve an enviable
image to display to others. We become outward people, obsessed with how we
appear, rather than inward people, reflecting on the meaning of our lives.
Busyness also seems to be a determination not to “miss out on life.” Behind
much of the rat-race of modern life is the unexamined assumption that what
I do determines who I am. In this way, we define ourselves by what we do
rather than by any quality of what we are inside. It is typical in a party
for one strange to approach another with the question “What do you do?”
Perhaps we wouldn’t have a clue how to respond to the deeper question, Who
are you?’
Since prayer belongs to the relational side of human life (to who “I am”
rather to “what I do”), it is inevitable that prayer will have a very low
priority, at the very best for people who live busy lives.
—From The Transforming Friendship
by James Houston
The desert initiates us into the life of the spirit by helping us to
discover who we most deeply are. To follow Christ means that we must let
go of excessive attachments to passing pleasures and possessions, to ploys
of autonomous power, to tangible goods as if they were ultimate. Christ
asks us to abandon our idols, whatever they may be, and to love Him with
our entire being.
“Pray to thy Father which is in secret.” God is a God who hides Himself to
the carnal eye. As long as in our worship of God we are chiefly occupied
with our own thoughts and exercises, we shall not meet Him who is a spirit,
the unseen One. But to the man who withdraws himself from all that is of
world and man, and prepares to wait upon God alone, the Father will reveal
Himself As he forsakes and gives up and shuts out the world, and the life
of the world, and surrenders himself to be led of Christ into the secret of
God’s presence, the light of the Father’s love will rise upon him. The
secrecy of the inner chamber and the closed door, the entire separation
from all around us, is an image of, and so a help to that inner spiritual
sanctuary, the secret of God’s tabernacle, within the veil, where our
spirit truly comes into contact with the Invisible One.
-From With Christ in the School of Prayer
by Andrew Murray
Solitude is the place where the whole of our personality and being, seen
and unseen, is drawn together in the transforming presence of God’s love.
But more than that the silence of solitude is the silence of eternity. We
are drawn into the mystery of something much bigger than ourselves. It
places us, with all that he has made, in the eternity of God’s cosmic love
and presence. It is there that life is renewed, restored and given its
true perspective.
— From The Center of Quiet
by David Runcorn
True and false silence
Silence will always feel attractive in a noisy and complex world. As we go
on to explore the place of silence in Christian life and prayer it is
important to recognize that some other forms of meditation and prayer
appeal to the instinct to escape. Sometimes Christian prayer falls into
the same trap. It is possible to manufacture all sorts of psychic and
spiritual states of stillness and peace. They work like a drug,
artificially damping down the demands and stress of the world outside.
That is not the prayer and solitude that Jesus teaches us. Just because we
feel quiet and close to God, doesn’t mean that we actually are. Christian
peace and prayer is not the absence of something (stress, pain, conflict
etc.), but the presence of Someone with us in the midst of it all. In fact
Christian prayer is drawing our lives more closely to the way of the cross.
It is all about following the way of Christ.
It is therefore sad to find Christians who are resisting their intuitive
desire to seek prayer in solitude because they feel it is selfish and
escapist. Clearly, when the Holy Spirit guides our journey in prayer, it
will be anything but an escape.
— From The Center of Quiet
by David Runcorn
The House at Rest
By Jessica Powers
On a dark night
Kindled in love with yearnings
Oh, happy chance!
I went forth unobserved,
My house being now at rest.
-Saint John of the Cross
How does one hush one’s house,
each proud possessive wall, each sighing rafter,
the rooms made restless with remembered laughter
or wounding echoes, the permissive doors,
the stairs that vacillate from up to down,
windows that bring in color and event from countryside or town,
oppressive ceilings and complaining floors?
The house must first of all accept the night.
Let it erase the walls and their display,
impoverish the rooms till they are filled
with humble silences; let clocks be stilled
and all the selfish urgencies of day.
Midnight is not the time to greet a guest,
Caution the doors against both foes and friends,
and try to make the windows understand
their unimportance when the daylight ends.
Persuade the stairs to patience, and deny
the passages their aimless to and fro.
Virtue it is that puts a house at rest.
How well repaid that tenant is, how blest
who, when the call is heard,
is free to take his kindled heart and go.
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