Solitude and Silence
Adapted from Compass mag Vol. 10.
"Solitude builds depth in one’s soul. And silence is the space in which the still small voice of God is often heard most distinctly. As such, the spiritual discipline of solitude and silence is an indispensable contemporary agenda in Christian mentoring…
"In solitude I get rid of my scaffolding: no friends to talk with, no telephone calls to make, no books to distract, no meetings to attend, no music to entertain, 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 distraction so that I can forget my nothingness and make myself believe I am worth something… Thus I try again to run from the dark abyss of my nothingness and restore my false self in all its vainglory… Solitude is… 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 compulsion of the world."
The Way of the Heart, by Henri Nouwen
In the compulsive nervousness of a restless world… there is a growing need for a Christian restedness that is rooted in Christ. The portal that ushers us into this corridor of rested faith is solitude and silence. And surrender. For after all, surrender (the key to transformation) is the worthy fruit of solitude and silence.
Have a blessed pilgrimage ahead. In solitude. In silence. In surrender to the Almighty."
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