Meditations on Solitude
Four writers who have influenced my thinking.
3rd September, 2018 // in The Coffeehouse Cleric // by Alex Rowe
As of today, Monday 3rd September, I begin a three-day retreat at a nearby Benedictine monastery called Buckfast Abbey. I came here five years ago when I finished my A-Levels. Now, ahead of another new stage in life, I am going back. It’s important to celebrate and commemorate the changes of the times and the seasons, and this is one way I am trying to do that.
As I look ahead to a time of silence, prayer, and fasting, I am reminded of a few individuals who have by their writings encouraged me to set aside time for spiritual practices such as these. I have searched and found a few of their quotations which I think worthy of meditation. I pray they encourage you also to look at your life, to be attentive to your soul, and to seek out rhythms of rest.
I order the quotations by author’s surname: Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Søren Kierkegaard, Henri Nouwen, and Dallas Willard. I also give the book titles where you can read more, if you so wish.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together.
“Let him who cannot be alone beware of community. He will only do harm to himself and to the community. Alone you stood before God when he called you; alone you had to answer that call; alone you had to struggle and pray; and alone you will die and given an account to God. You cannot escape from yourself; for God has singled you out. If you refused to be alone you are rejecting God’s call to you, and you can have no part in the community of those who are called.”
“But the reverse is also true: Let him who is not in community beware of being alone. Into the community you were called, the call was not meant for you alone; in the community of the called you bear your cross, you struggle, you pray. You are not alone, even in death, and on the Last Day you will be only one member of the great congregation of Jesus Christ. If you scorn the fellowship of the brethren, you reject the call of Jesus Christ, and thus your solitude can only be hurtful to you.”
Kierkegaard, Without Authority, and Christian Discourses
“Only by being silent does one find the moment [when the presence of the Eternal can be sensed in time]. . . . Because a person cannot keep silence, it rarely happens that he really comes to understand when the moment is and to use the moment properly. He cannot be silent and wait, which perhaps explains why the moment never comes for him at all. He cannot be silent, which perhaps explains why he was not aware of the moment when it did come for him. Although pregnant with its rich meaning, the moment does not have any message sent in advance to announce its coming; it comes too swiftly for that when it comes, and there is not a moment’s time beforehand. Nor does the moment, no matter how significant it is in itself, come with noise or with shouting. No, it comes softly, with a lighter step than the lightest footfall of any creature, since it comes with the light step of the sudden; it comes stealthily — therefore one must be absolutely silent if one is to be aware that “now it is here.” At the next moment it is gone, and for that reason one must have been absolutely silent if one is to succeed in making use of it. Yet everything depends on the moment. Indeed, the misfortune in the lives of the great majority of human beings is this, that they were never aware of the moment, that in their lives the eternal and the temporal are exclusively separated. And why? Because they could not be silent.” (WA)
“A person can ignore [the inner] call [of longing]; he can change it into an impulse of the moment, into a whim that vanishes without a trace the next moment. He can resist it; he can prevent its deeper generation within him; he can let it die unused as a barren mood. But if you accept it with gratitude as a gift of God, it will indeed become a blessing to you.” (CD)
Henri Nouwen, Clowning in Rome: Reflections on Solitude, Celibacy, Prayer and Contemplation.
“Solitude is the place where we can connect with profound bonds that are deeper than the emergency bonds of fear and anger. Although fear and anger indeed drive us together, they do not give rise to our love for one another. In solitude we come to the realisation that we are not driven together but brought together. In solitude we come to know our fellow human beings not as partners who satisfy our deepest needs, but as brothers and sisters with whom we are called to give visibility to God’s all-embracing love. In solitude we discover that family or community is not some common ideology but a response to a common call. In solitude we indeed experience that community is not made but given. Solitude, then, is not private time in contrast to time together, nor is it a time to restore our tired minds. Solitude is very different from a ‘time-out’ from our busy lives. Solitude is the very ground from which community grows. Whenever we pray alone, study, read, write, or simply spend quiet time away from the places where we interact with each other directly, we are potentially opened for a deeper intimacy with each other.”
“Every time we enter into solitude we withdraw from our windy, tornadolike, fiery lives and we open ourselves for the great encounter, the meeting with Love. But first in our solitude is the discovery of our own restlessness, our drivenness, our compulsiveness, our urge to act quickly, to make an impact, and to have influence. We really have to try very hard to withstand the gnawing urge to return as quickly as possible to the work of ‘relevance.’ But when we persevere with the help of a gentle disciple, we slowly come to hear the still, small voice and to feel the delicate breeze, and so come to know the presence of Love. This love goes straight to the heart, making us see the truth of who we really are. We are God’s beloved children.”
“…solitude is a place of transformation. When we find space and silence we are transformed from people who need to show all that we have acquired and all the wonderful things we do, into people who raise our open and empty hands to a loving God, recognising that our life and all we have is a free gift from God.”
Dallas Willard, The Great Omission: Reclaiming Jesus’s Essential Teachings on Discipleship.
“Solitude well practiced will break the power of busyness, haste, isolation, and loneliness. You will see that the world is not on your shoulders after all. Your will find yourself, and God will find you in new ways. Silence also brings Sabbath to you. It completes solitude, for without it you cannot be alone. Far from being a mere absence, silence allows the reality of God to stand in the midst of your life. God does not ordinarily compete for our attention. In silence we come to attend. Lastly, fasting is done that we many consciously experience the direct sustenance of God to our body and our whole person.”
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