Solitude and Silence
“Without solitude it is impossible to have a life with God.”
In January, our spiritual family in Chicago set off on a one-year spiritual transformation journey. We’re using Ruth Haley Barton’s book Sacred Rhythms as our guide. We gather once a month to engage a spiritual practice together and then spend the month exploring and integrating the practice into our lives. This contemplative, communal, experiential approach pushes against our hurried, individualized, cognitive-heavy spirituality.
The journey into spiritual practices begins as we learn to pay attention to our desire in God's presence. When we connect with our deepest, truest desires for our life with God we move beyond "oughts and shoulds", the expectations of others, and our own inner compulsions to allow our desire to become the impetus for deepening our spiritual journey.
Solitude and silence is the container for all spiritual practices. Essentially, solitude and silence is the act and process of “coming home to ourselves in God's presence.” As long as we remain enslaved to a culture of noise, speed, superficiality, and distraction, we will not be the people God longs for us to be. We desperately need a spirituality that roots us in a different way.
What is solitude?
Outer posture: fasting from fellowship with others to be alone with God; unplugging from our life in the company of others in order to give our full attention to God
Inner posture: a quiet inner room with God; a place inside yourself where God’s spirit and your spirit dwell together in loving union; a place of rest, surrender, and being rather than doing and striving
What is silence?
Outer posture: fasting from speaking to listen to God; withdrawing from our addiction to noise, words, and activity in order to listen for the still small voice of God
Inner posture: quieting our inner noise (thoughts, worries, strivings, compulsions, desire to control) to settle down so we can pay attention to the stirrings of our souls, give ourselves to God’s loving initiatives, and hear a truer and more reliable Voice; a place of listening and receiving rather than talking and producing
The practices of solitude and silence are radical because they challenge us on every level –
Culturally, they resist the pace, hustle, productivity mindset, constant stimulation, and avoidance that define much of modern life.
Relationally, they push against the pressure to be constantly available, connected, and responsive to others.
Psychologically, they expose how we often stay busy or numb ourselves to avoid facing our true thoughts, wounds, or reality.
Spiritually, they confront the schemes of the enemy, who knows that if God’s children become still and quiet, they are far more likely to encounter the presence of God and experience the abundant life He offers.
In light of this, solitude and silence is a place of struggle, encounter, and transformation - “a struggle against the compulsions of the false self and an encounter with the loving God who offers himself as the substance of the new self.” This is the essence of spiritual transformation and the goal of discipleship (“...that we may present everyone mature in Christ.” Colossians 1:28).
Ruth Haley Barton said, “One of the most important lessons I have learned is to have time and space for being with what’s real in my life—to celebrate the joys, grieve the losses, shed my tears, sit with the questions, feel my anger, attend to my loneliness. This kind of “being with what is” is not the same thing as problem-solving or fixing because not everything can be fixed or solved. Rather, it is to allow God to be with me in the midst of what’s real and to wait for him to do what is needed. Solitude offers us a concrete way of entering into this kind of stillness so that God can come and do what only God can do.”
“Solitude eventually offers a quiet gift of grace, a gift that comes whenever we are able to face ourselves honestly: the gift of acceptance, of compassion, for who we are as we are. As we allow ourselves to be known in solitude, we discover that we are known by love. Beyond the pain of self-discovery, there is a love that does not condemn us, but calls us to itself. This love receives us as we are. ”
We see Jesus regularly seek out times of solitude and silence where he could be alone with God. Jesus lived a rhythm of solitude and community: retreat from people to be with God, in order to return to community in love and service. This rhythm marked his life and ministry. His outer life found its strength in his inner sanctuary where he was loved by and connected to his Father. Solitude and community are twin pillars of the spiritual life, the two legs by which we follow Jesus and his way of Life. Our doing flows out of our being. In other words, our centeredness in God informs our presence in the world. This was true of Jesus and is also true for us. When we are centered (or abiding) in the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit then we bring our healthiest and truest selves into community with others.
There may be many objections and some resistance in you as you read about solitude and silence here. This is quite normal. Maybe you’re an extrovert, or you’re afraid God won’t show up for you, or this feels like losing control and that doesn’t feel good, or you’re scared of what you’ll face in yourself, or it sounds boring. So many things. We can take all our objections and resistance to God. We can begin there.
Solitude and silence is an invitation to intimacy with the Lover of our souls. And an invitation to a journey, as Marjorie Thompson said, to “shed the familiar but constricting "old self" and allow our "new self" in Christ to be formed--the true self that is naturally attracted to the light of God."
God is waiting for you just outside the noise and busyness of your life...
May we accept God's invitation to solitude and silence, for that is where we discover rest for our souls, a love that knows no bounds, and receive new, abundant life.