Silence and Solitude: A Practice to Try in the New Year
Happy 2020, friends! I sincerely hope this new year is bringing you an abundance of opportunities to connect deeply with the Father and with those you love!
We’re continuing in our series on classic spiritual disciplines, with a look at silence and solitude.
Now, for a moment of transparency: I’ve been thinking and reading and learning about this discipline and topic for weeks, and I’ve also been avoiding writing about it.
I am no expert at practicing silence and solitude regularly, and though I’ve spent YEARS reading about and learning from others who practice them, I am very much still learning. Even as an introvert, these practices are challenging! And, ironically, they are--according to the wisdom of folks like Henri Nouwen, Thomas Merton, Dallas Willard, Ruth Haley Barton, the mystics, and even all the way back to the Desert Fathers—the critical spiritual disciplines that form the foundation of every other spiritual practice.
Truthfully, I used to think of silence and solitude as practices for refreshment, renewal, and getting away from people and set aside responsibilities. But they are not designed to make me feel rested. They’re designed to strip away all the distractions, let me see myself clearly, and allow me to hear the voice of God. Nouwen calls silence and solitude “the furnace of transformation” (The Way of the Heart, p. 13). Deliberately placing myself into a furnace sounds like the very opposite of restful.
But friends, I am in need of practicing silence and solitude myself right now. Desperately. (I think that’s the real reason why I’ve procrastinated writing this post…) I can feel in my soul a deep, deep longing to get away from noise, words, instagram posts, unsettling news stories, the world telling me what I should want and have and do. To instead be so satisfied with the quiet presence of God that words are unnecessary. There’s a quote from Spurgeon that has been playing in my head the last few days, in which he says that “contemplation, still worship, unuttered rapture, these are mine when my best jewels are before me. Brethren, rob not your heart of the deep sea joys; miss not the far-down life.”
Rob not our hearts of the deep sea joys.
Miss not the far-down life.
So, let’s plumb the depths and learn this far-down life together, shall we?
Photo by Iswanto Arif via Unsplash
SILENCE AND SOLITUDE: WHAT THEY ARE, AND WHY THEY’RE CHALLENGING
What exactly do I mean by “silence and solitude” as spiritual practices?
One of the best and simplest definitions is one I heard recently from a podcast by John Mark Comer and Jefferson Bethke: Get alone. With God. With yourself. In the quiet.
That’s it! Simple? Certainly. Easy? Not so much.
There are a variety of reasons why practicing silence and solitude regularly can be challenging, but I’ll just touch on two. The first is your season of life.
Right now, I’m married, office from home, and we don’t have kids yet (we’re hoping that last one’ll change soon—pray with us, would you?!). You may be a parent with young kiddos running around, or you may be chasing your teenagers from one thing to the next. Maybe both! You may be an empty nester, divorced, retired, single, in college or seminary or grad school….whatever your season, there are an infinite number of reasons you’ve probably already tallied in your mind as to why silence and solitude just doesn’t seem like a realistic spiritual practice for you. Maybe it’s helpful to actually write all of those reasons down, so you can see them on paper and offer them to the Lord in prayer.
The second challenge that stands in the way of us practicing silence and solitude is our tech-addicted, plugged-in culture's ability to make us blind to our compulsions. There are so many benefits to technology, but our addiction to our iPhone-appendages is a very real and significant barrier to spiritual health and growth.
I just bought a new phone about two weeks ago, and this shiny, new, faster device with a much longer battery life is constantly in front of my eyes. Anytime I’m uncomfortable, bored, or procrastinating, I instinctively and impulsively reach for my phone to scroll Instagram or Facebook, check email, check the weather, see how many steps I’ve taken today, jot down a task in Todoist, or do literally anything other than sit alone with my own thoughts before God. Far too often, I would rather be distracted than quiet these voices long enough to feel what I feel, think what I think, or hear what God wants me to hear. Can you relate?
Read Henri Nouwen’s wise words from The Way of the Heart, written nearly 40 years ago and still just as relevant today:
“Our identity, our sense of self, is at stake. Secularity is a way of being dependent on the responses of our milieu. The secular or false self is the self which is fabricated, as Thomas Merton says, by social compulsions. ‘Compulsive’ is indeed the best adjective for the false self. It points to the need for ongoing and increasing affirmation. Who am I? I am the one who is liked, praised, admired, disliked, hated or despised. Whether I am a pianist, a businessman or a minister, what matters is how I am perceived by my world. If being busy is a good thing, then I must be busy. If having money is a sign of real freedom, then I must claim my money. If knowing many people proves my importance, I will have to make the necessary contest. The compulsion manifests itself in the lurking fear of failing and the steady urge to prevent this by gathering more of the same—more work, more money, more friends.” (The Way of the Heart, p. 11)
So much of this addiction, distraction, and compulsion is rooted in fear, as Nouwen points out. We are afraid to be with ourselves: with our real, interior selves, the things that we are trying all the time to distract ourselves from (Ruth Haley Barton, Invitation to Solitude and Silence, pp. 48-49). Perhaps we are even afraid that God won’t actually show up if we make time for Him. Or perhaps He will—and then we’ll have to give up our illusions of control.
THE INVITATION
Even if silence and solitude doesn’t yet sound all that appealing to you, that’s okay. I get it.
Here is what I know, though: God longs to be with us. So, so deeply. And Jesus showed us that His way is to go and be with the Father, as often as we can.
In Luke 5, directly after a verse that describes the crowds that would follow Jesus, it says this in verse 16: “But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed” (Luke 5:16, NIV). The Message translation puts it this way: “As often as possible, Jesus withdrew to out-of-the-way places for prayer” (emphasis added). Verses like this are all over the Gospels - again and again, we find Jesus entering into silence and solitude with the Father.
The beautiful thing to me is that I know the Father is patient, too. He’ll wait for me to get over my protests and my distractions, and finally say yes to His ever-present, gentle invitation to communion with Him.
Basil Pennington puts it like this:
God is infinitely patient. He will not push himself into our lives. He knows the greatest thing he has given us is our freedom. If we want habitually, even exclusively, to operate from the level of our own reason, he will respectfully keep silent. We can fill ourselves with our own thoughts, ideas, images, and feelings. He will not interfere. But if we invite him with attention, opening the inner spaces with silence, he will speak to our souls, not in words or concepts, but in the mysterious way that Love expresses itself—by presence (Centered Living).
WHAT HAPPENS IN THE "FURNACE OF TRANSFORMATION”
One of the Desert Fathers of the 4th century, Abba Arsenius, is quoted as saying: “Go, sit in your cell, and your cell will teach you everything” (The Sayings of the Desert Fathers, p. 9). When we say “yes” to God’s invitation to silence and solitude, there are a few things that are likely to happen in our little cells of solitude. Anyone who has written about these practices has described very relatable, familiar experiences about what to expect when we follow Abba Arsenius’ advice:
WE ARE CONFRONTED WITH OUR BROKENNESS AND DESPERATION (AND SOME OF IT IS PRETTY UGLY).
Inevitably, it’ll take a few minutes to settle in. We’ll feel twitchy and distracted, and then, just when we start to settle into the quiet, our bodies are relaxed, and we allow our thoughts to begin to calm, strange things will come to mind: old wounds or painful memories, insecurities and doubts, fears and anxieties, our failures and shame, even illusions about ourselves.
These words from Henri Nouwen articulate this experience with painful honesty:
“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."
All of this can happen in a matter of just a few minutes of sitting alone in the quiet. This, I know, is why practicing silence and solitude is so dang hard, friends. But “the task,” Nouwen continues, “is to persevere in my solitude, to stay in my cell until all my seductive visitors get tired of pounding on my door and leave me alone.” (The Way of the Heart, p. 15). And here, when we can stick it out and let our broken, desperate thoughts swirl and churn, then settle, we are confronted with the love of Jesus.
2. GOD’S GENTLE PRESENCE AND LOVE ENTER IN, AND WE CAN FREELY SURRENDER “TOTALLY AND UNCONDITIONALLY TO THE LORD JESUS CHRIST” (NOUWEN, 16).
The comforting thing is that God won’t let us stay in that place of confronting our nothingness and desperation. He is right there beside us, and He’ll whisper to us that He left Heaven in order to call us out of that place and into a life of freedom and transformation. God’s presence becomes very real, and all of a sudden “this silence is unlike all other silences, for it is full of a Presence that makes itself known as a subtle stirring of the soul, a gentle blowing, a quiet whisper” (Barton, Invitation to Solitude and Silence, p. 110).
The compulsive dance between pride and insecurity, desire and greed, anger and fear no longer have the final word. God’s love becomes personal, tangible, and overwhelmingly good. “As we come to realize it is not we who live, but Christ 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,” writes Nouwen in The Way of the Heart (have I convinced you to read this beautiful little book of his yet?!).
3. WE BECOME MORE COMPASSIONATE, LOVING PEOPLE.
Once we acknowledge our limitations and brokenness and experience the loving presence of God, compassion swells within us. We know we’re just like every other person walking this planet, and we want each of them to experience and know the lavish, wildly faithful love of God. We start to love like Him, and we bring the transformation that we experience in solitude back out into our relationships and ministry.
If you’ve seen the recent movie about Mr. Rogers called “A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood” starring Tom Hanks (WARNING: slight spoiler ahead), you’ll recall the most incredible scene: Mr. Rogers gently invites the other main character—a man who is certainly being confronted with his own brokenness and need—to sit in silence for two minutes in a crowded, noisy restaurant. And it’s the most beautiful gift of presence! If you haven’t seen the movie, this scene alone is worth the price. I can’t do it justice here, but Mr. Rogers’ compassion and love just pours out in the gentlest, most Jesus-like way through those few minutes of silence, bringing tears to the other character’s eyes.
(The two big takeaways from this blog post: buy The Way of the Heart by Henri Nouwen and rent "A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood.” 🙂)
TIPS FOR PRACTICING SILENCE AND SOLITUDE
I’m still learning how to prioritize silence and solitude in my daily life, but here are a few tips and pieces of practical wisdom I’ve come across:
Simply make time for it. Nouwen’s very practical advice: “The very first thing we need to do is set apart a time and a place to be with God and him alone."
Figure out where your “cell” is. Ruth Haley Barton calls this “sacred space.” Is it your car in between errands or sitting quietly while parked? Your favorite chair or corner of the couch? Your backyard or front porch? On a walk?
Turn off your phone. Just do it, friend. Better yet — turn it off, and stick it in a drawer in another room.
Use a grounding prayer practice to help you stay present, especially in the first few minutes, like the Jesus Prayer (“Jesus Christ, have mercy on me, a sinner”), breath prayer (as you inhale, pray a simple phrase: “Jesus, meet me here”; as you exhale, repeat another phrase: “Help me to know your love”), or meditate on a phrase from scripture (the Psalms are great for this!).
Try it for 10 minutes a day, and slowly increase the time each week or month.
Commit to practicing silence and solitude, but do so graciously and in the freedom of the Spirit of God.
As a personal discipline, I’m committing to practicing silence and solitude for 10 minutes a day, for the next month. Will you join me? We can learn these rhythms together!
I’ll leave you with these beautiful words from Wendell Berry:
“The mind that comes to rest is tended
In ways that it cannot intend;
Is borne, preserved, and comprehended
By what it cannot comprehend.”
-Wendell Berry, “Another Sunday Morning Comes” (This Day: Collected and New Sabbath Poems)
RESOURCES
Looking for more recommended resources on silence and solitude? Here are our favorites:
Books:
Invitation to Solitude and Silence by Ruth Haley Barton (includes beautiful, simple practices in each chapter!)
The Celebration of Discipline by Richard Foster
The Way of the Heart by Henri Nouwen (by far the best)
The Sayings of the Desert Fathers, translated by Benedicta Ward
Podcasts:
"Fight Hustle, End Hurry” podcast by Jefferson Bethke and John Mark Comer, Episode 4 (the whole season is excellent so far, and includes a TON of the same stuff I’ve stumbled upon and learned!)
"Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership" podcast by Ruth Haley Barton and Steve Weins, Season 5 (all on her book mentioned above!)