How can we find stillness in a busy, chaotic world? And why should we seek to be countercultural in this quest? Philippa shares from her own journey of embracing silence as a way of encountering God. I hope you can find some time to quiet yourself today and enter into God’s loving presence:
As I drove into the car park, surrounded by dark trees on a chilly autumn evening, I felt peace wash over me. It was October, 1989, and I had booked a weekend at a picturesque retreat house in West Sussex called St Julian’s, run by an Anglican lay community. I have been on many retreats since then but that first taste of stillness and silence at St Julian’s remains a special memory.
Years later, I am still very much a novice at practicing stillness and silence. My prayer life is often fickle and inconsistent. Yet I hold before me the promise of stillness and silence as beautiful gateways to God’s presence.
In the morning, while it was still very dark, he got up and went out to a deserted place, and there he prayed. Mark 1:35 (NRSV)
Jesus launches his ministry in a blaze of power – proclaiming the kingdom of God, calling four fishermen to follow him, delivering a man from an evil spirit in a local synagogue, and healing Peter’s mother-in-law. By nightfall there are crowds outside the door, bringing the sick to be healed by this amazing young rabbi. With all this desperate human need surrounding him, what does Jesus do the next day? Very early in the morning, before dawn, he gets up, leaves the house where he and his companions are staying, and heads to a solitary, deserted place, where he prays.
Perhaps he chose somewhere quiet in the hills above the sea of Galilee. Wherever this lonely place was, it was just him alone with his Father. His first priority is to be alone with the Father and spend precious time with him, before resuming his ministry. If the Son of God himself needed to do this, while he was here on earth, how much more do I.
For God alone my soul waits in silence; from him comes my salvation. Psalm 62:1 (NRSV)
This verse awakens in me a deep yearning to wait for God in stillness and silence, to receive his love and his perfect peace. It’s so simple to come humbly before God in stillness and silence, to quieten my dark thoughts and troubled impulses, so that he can meet with me and I with him. Yet it can be so hard, because there’s so much within me and without me that distracts me from following God.
I have learned that I don’t have to be in a house of prayer, or a beautiful garden, or even alone in the hills, surrounded by the beauty of creation, in order to find God’s presence. He is always there. I can enter stillness and silence even in the musty, noisy, claustrophobic chaos of the London Underground. Just by focusing my breathing and praying the name of Jesus either silently or under my breath, I can centre my being and become aware that God is here with me all the time and can pour his peace into my heart any time. It doesn’t matter where I am. It doesn’t matter what’s going on. Just as Jesus met with his Father in intimacy and solitude, so I too can enter that intimacy and solitude with the Father and the Son.
Entering prayer through stillness and silence leads me more deeply into a loving awareness of God. It’s so simple … and God never stops inviting me to come ever closer and deeper.
Philippa Linton is the administrator for the education and learning office of the United Reformed Church. She is also an Anglican lay minister. She wrote a devotional for the anthology ‘Light for the Writer’s Soul’, published by Media Associates International, and her short story ‘Magnificat’ appears in the ACW Christmas Anthology.
Order 7 Ways to Pray here for more ways to encounter God, including resources for small groups.
A pregnant pause.
A companionable silence.
An awkward pause.
The sound of silence.
Silence –
It can be deafening
It can be rich
Or a source of strength
Or a drain of energy
Some crave it
Others run from it
I love a good block of silence in my days. When Mondays come around, I’m delighted to be in my sunny study, writing or answering emails, or pondering. The quiet gives me time to process all that’s going on in my heart and in my head, for my thoughts seem to swirl around and around. I need time alone to catch some of those thoughts and process them. To get them down on paper and to make sense of them before God. To seek his inspiration, help, comfort, and love.
Over the summer, I worked on my dissertation for my master’s in Christian spirituality. I had three weeks in our home basically on my own – first the kids were at camps and my husband was on retreat, and then my husband took them on holiday. During the weekends we’d reconvene, all together in the vicarage, with the noise and hum of daily life once again appearing. And then they’d leave, and I’d be alone.
Me in my sunny, silent study. A happy place – usually.
The first week I relished the silence, thrilled to be able to work uninterrupted as I slogged forth in laying down a first draft.
The second week I made sure I left the house a few times, set up a few video chats with friends, and was glad that my husband was home for a few of the days.
The third week I cried, feeling sorry for myself as I knew I had not only the excruciating work of rewriting my draft, but had to live in what now felt like crushing silence.
I made it through the summer alone. I know now that although in my daily life I yearn for slices of silence, I too need times with others.
One from the archives. I wrote this for Quiet Spaces
in 2008; it later appeared in Woman Alive and then in
Inspiring Women Every Day. And now for its final
resting place…
The incongruity of reading a murder mystery during a time set apart for communion with God was finally too much even for me. I packed up K Is for Killer in my duffel bag and vowed not to open the zipper.
I was at my favorite place of retreat, where I had met God previously. There I had decided against entering a marriage commitment; there I had received a fresh filling of God’s Spirit; there had I entered his presence in quiet and gentle ways. This time, however, I felt far from the Lord. I knew in my head that he was there even if I didn’t feel his presence, but my heart wasn’t so sure.
I had been silent for hours but was not truly quiet—the voices screaming inside drowned out any still, small voice of God. I was filled with pain and doubt. “Are you really speaking to me, God?” I cried out. “Is that really you I’m hearing, or is it just my heart? Or something else? I don’t want to anchor my life on what’s not real. Are you there? Can I hear you?”
Anguish had filled me for weeks. I had announced that I was leaving the Christian organization I was working for to join another Christian group in a different city, but my plans had fallen through. Bottomed out, more like it. The opportunities I was pursuing evaporated as the doors slammed in my face. The embarrassment of announcing my intentions and then not leaving was painful, but more devastating was my belief that God had directed the move.
I yearned for God, yet couldn’t bear to approach him. After a few weeks, however, I knew I needed a place of quiet in which to face the pain and to seek God’s solace. Having made arrangements with the retreat centre, I began my time alone with a mixture of fear and anticipation. Yet here I was reading the latest Sue Grafton novel. I came to my senses and lugged my Bible, journal, and a blanket down to the nearby pond for a change of scene. After gazing at the serene waters and the wildlife around it, I was finally able to pour out my pain, disappointment, and confusion to the Lord. In the silence and solitude he met me; God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit surrounded and silenced me with his love and peace. Once again, my heart knew and believed.
It would take many years of growing in maturity before I would be more confident in discerning the still, small voice of God. But that day at the convent was a turning point in my relationship, for once again I was able to trust and receive assurance from him. It was only when I silenced the competing voices and offered up to the Lord my unrealized hopes and dreams that I was able to enter into a deep quiet and hear his voice.
The roar of the stillness
Why is the spiritual discipline of solitude and its close partner silence so difficult for us modern people? The answer is seemingly obvious—we have manifold possibilities with which to fill our lives, much of it via the online world and our smartphones. Technology surely contributes to the cacophony surrounding us, but a deeper answer resides in the condition of the human heart. Blaise Pascal was onto it back before Blackberries (in the 1600s) when he said that all our miseries derive from not being able to sit alone in a quiet room.
What do you hear? The Whispering Arch at the monastery at Clonmacnoise in the Republic of Ireland. According to legend, here the monks would listen to confessions; the confessor would stand at one end of the arch and the monk on the other side. Only the monk could hear the whispered sins.
Or Augustine of Hippo in his famous line from his Confessions puts it succinctly: “For you have formed us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you.” The God-shaped vacuum inside of us cries out to be filled. If we don’t turn to God, we will look to something else, such as pulp fiction, food, wine, sex, shopping, or even the building of God’s kingdom. Turning down the volume of the outside noise and taking away the comfort-crutches leaves us on our own, naked before God. And for many, like me on that day in the convent, that is chilling.
Indeed, silence is frightening, Dallas Willard says in his fine book The Spirit of the Disciplines, “because it strips us as nothing else does, throwing us upon the stark realities of our life. It reminds us of death, which will cut us off from this world and leave only us and God.” He continues, “In solitude, we confront our own soul with its obscure forces and conflicts that escape our attention when we are interacting with others…. We can only survive solitude if we cling to Christ there.”
And that is what I found; when I finished falling, I landed on Christ. Never are there more welcoming arms; never is there a more solid foundation.
“Be still and know”
Many of us run from solitude and silence, but these disciplines are vital to a flourishing and robust spiritual life. Setting aside time in the day, week, month, and year to be alone with God will feed our souls as nothing else will. I hear you respond, “My schedule is already too full—I can’t possibly fit in another thing.” As a parent of young children, I can relate. At such stages of life—or, for example, if you’re caring for a sick loved one—an offsite retreat may be out of the question.
Richard Foster in his classic Celebration of Discipline speaks to this dilemma:
Solitude is more a state of mind and heart than it is a place…. If we possess inward solitude we do not fear being alone, for we know that we are not alone. Neither do we fear being with others, for they do not control us. In the midst of noise and confusion we are settled into a deep inner silence. Whether alone or among people, we always carry with us a portable sanctuary of the heart.
He recommends that we make the most of what he calls the “little solitudes” of the day, such as the early morning before the family awakes, during our morning cuppa, while in traffic or commuting, when we glimpse a tree or a flower. As he says, “These tiny snatches of time are often lost to us. What a pity! They can and should be redeemed.”
But maybe you are able to get away for a twenty-four hour (or longer) retreat for silence and solitude. I’ve always found the best settings to be those nestled in a lovely spot of nature, for there are fewer distractions and the surroundings themselves lead to worship of the Creator. The trees of the wood sing out in joy before the Lord; the sea roars and the fields rejoice. God’s handiwork is awe-inspiring and produces a grateful heart.
One of my strong petitions while on retreat (and not limited to then) is to enter into a deep silence so that I can hear the voice of the Lord and receive from him. I’m easily distracted and, like Martha while Jesus was visiting, “worried and upset about many things” (Luke 10.41). For me to release those niggles often takes a conscious effort in prayer, usually through writing out my meditations on a verse of Scripture or spending time praising the Lord in song. For example, in seeking quietness I might pray through a verse from Isaiah (30:15): “In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength…” But sometimes what I need most is simply a nap – and that’s the most “spiritual” thing I can be doing.
Whether we’re able to get away for a couple of hours, a couple of days, or not at all, the practice of solitude and silence can bring us not only into communion with God, but into a newfound freedom. Through it we can be released from the need to fill our time with words, distractions, self-soothing behavior, or the pressing desire for the approval of others. For when Jesus says, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest,” we can believe and know that he is speaking to us.
As we meet with the God of the universe, the One who bids us call him Abba, we are changed into his likeness. His presence is beyond compare—far and above any murder mystery.
A pregnant pause.
