April 2, 2006

Phoning Home: Solitude
Luke 5:12-16

Shel Silverstein, author of the inspiring book, The Giving Tree, wrote a collection of poems for children entitled Where the Sidewalk Ends. Included in that collection is a poem about a young boy named Reginald Clark, who is desperately afraid of the dark:
I’m Reginald Clark, I’m afraid of the dark
So I always insist on the light on,
And my teddy to hug
And my blanket to rub
And my thumby to suck on or to bite on.
And three bedtime stories,
Two trips to the toilet,
Two prayers and five hugs from my mommy,
I’m Reginald Clark, I’m afraid of the dark
So please do not close this book on me.
Reginald Clark is afraid of the dark. What are you afraid of? Heights? Water? Spiders? Enclosed spaces? Silence? Being all alone?

We live in a noisy world, a busy world. We are people on the move, people with important things to do, people with schedules to keep, people with headphones on, people with telephones in our pockets and even around our ears. I sat in the orthodontist’s office with my daughter a few days ago, and a man in the examination chair next to hers was actually talking on the telephone while the doctor prepared to insert a new wire into his mouth! A short time ago a dear friend of mine was in town, and we went to Cracker Barrel for breakfast. We couldn’t even hear ourselves think. At home, many people keep the TV on most of the day, including during mealtimes, whether they are consciously watching it or not. Certain contemporary worship planners even encourage us to “fill all of the spaces” in our services—“keep things moving quickly,” they say. Whenever it is up to us to decide, we often seem to avoid silence.

Jesus, perhaps to our embarrassment, practiced the discipline of solitude. “…many crowds would gather to hear him (Jesus) and to be cured of their diseases,” Luke informs us, “but he would withdraw to deserted places and pray” (vv. 15-16). Why does that scare many of us so much? If I tell someone that I am going away for a few days of silence and prayer, they look at me as though I am nearly out of my mind. Why? Why is it often so difficult for us to slow down and be quiet? There are undoubtedly any number of reasons, but these come to mind:
Being created in the image of God means, among other things, that we ourselves gain a sense of accomplishment and self-worth when we “create.” Just think of a child showing off a new drawing or a Lego creation. We feel alive when we make something of significance.
This God-given urge to create, however, at times leads to an overemphasis on the value of productivity and an unending desire to produce and accumulate. In its most visible forms, we sometimes reason that to slow down is to waste opportunities to achieve higher grades, earn more money, or gain greater prestige. In its more subtle form, this overemphasis on productivity leads us to evaluate both people and time on the basis of measurable accomplishments. As a result, people are known primarily by what they do, and the value of time is measured by what has been accomplished. “How was your day?” someone asks. “Great,” I respond. “I got a lot done.” And in the process, the profound value of “silence” gets lost in the mess. How, after all, do you measure quietness? How do you evaluate the value and effects of solitude?
We sometimes feel overwhelmed by the situations around us—the needs in our families, communities and world. I remember well sitting on the upper floor of B. L. Fisher library learning to read ancient languages that no one even speaks any more. How could I do this—how could I set time aside for study and reflection—when people are dying all around me? If we slow down—if we practice the discipline of solitude—we may feel as though we are shirking our responsibility to help others.

Surely many of you resonate with one or more of these possible explanations for our
aversion to silence and solitude, and you could no doubt add other reasons of your own. But let me explore yet another reason, at a different level. We are, I believe, often afraid of quietness and solitude because we are actually very lonely people deep inside. They picked teams when you were a child, and you were the last one selected. You were proud of something you did, and no one noticed. You asked someone out, and they turned you down. You thought you were in line for a promotion, and someone else was selected. The world is running by, and it continues to slap us in the face. We are hurt. We are lonely. And what often frightens us is the thought that if we slow down, we will be left alone with ourselves—our thoughts, our feelings, our memories, our wandering minds, our emptiness.

If you don’t believe me, just try sitting totally still for even a short while. Almost immediately, you will begin thinking of phone calls that need to be made, e-mails begging to be sent, TV shows clamoring to be watched. Some years ago I asked five seniors at the college who I met with every week to set aside one hour on Friday night to practice total silence—no books, magazines, music, homework—nothing. You would have thought that I asked them to write a 25-page paper. Why is practicing solitude so difficult? Because these other things are genuinely so important at the moment? Rarely. Rather, the internal disquietedness that too often permeates our souls pushes us to activity so that we can avoid whatever it is that is actually going on deep within us. Being alone—and silent—leaves us facing overwhelmingly uncomfortable feelings, so we run to avoid them and drown them out with noise.

But running is not the cure for internal unsettledness, nor is noise a meaningful solution for loneliness. In his book entitled Reaching Out, Henri Nouwen recounts what went through his mind on one of his rides on a New York City subway:
Sitting in the subway, I am surrounded by silent people hidden behind their newspapers or staring away in the world of their own fantasies. Nobody speaks with a stranger, and a patrolling policeman keeps reminding me that people are not out to help each other. But when my eyes wander over the walls of the train covered with invitations to buy more or new products, I see young, beautiful people enjoying each other in gentle embrace, playful men and women smiling at each other in fast sailboats, proud explorers on horseback encouraging each other to take brave risks, fearless children dancing on a sunny beach, and charming girls always ready to serve me in aeroplanes and ocean liners. While the subway train runs from one dark tunnel into the other and I am nervously aware where I keep my money, the words and images decorating my fearful world speak about love, gentleness, tenderness and about a joyful togetherness of spontaneous people.
Again, incessant busyness, noise and stimulation are not cures for loneliness.

What we must do instead is create within us what Gordon McDonald calls “inner sanctuary.” Or, as Nouwen describes it, we must convert our loneliness and ever-present unsettledness into genuine solitude. And how do we do that? We practice the discipline of solitude. Start with a few moments at the beginning and end of each day. Find a restful place—your favorite chair by the window or a bench under a tree—to wait silently on God and to reflect on the day before you or the day just past. Then, seize selected moments throughout the day, moments that you might ordinarily fill with unnecessary noise and activity, to catch your breath and pay attention to what God is doing in you and around you. And finally, periodically set aside larger blocks of time—a few hours or even a few days—to withdraw totally from noise, activity and the ongoing responsibilities that you face on a regular basis. During such times, wait on God—even when you feel like running!—and invite him to help you see how he has been and continues to be present in your life. During a recent prayer retreat, I endured considerable boredom and anxiety—it took nearly two days to move beyond all of the “stuff” that was in my heart and on my mind. But as I waited—it was not easy—the nervousness and frustration passed and I began to experience a transformation deep within my soul. I think I wrote over thirty pages in my journal during the next day as God began to speak to me in ways that I would certainly have missed had I kept running and drowning myself in noise.

Reginald Clark was deathly afraid of the dark. What, let me ask again, are you afraid of? If stillness—being left alone with your thoughts, feelings, memories, hurts and pains—finds its way onto your list, as it does for most people, there is something you can begin to do. And if listening to God in the middle of a busy world is becoming increasingly important to you, there is, once again, something you can do. You can begin practicing the discipline of solitude. When you do, you will notice at least two areas of your life undergoing renewed transformation. First, practicing solitude will force you to face yourself honestly—to stop running—and will enable you to begin coming to terms with who you are deep down inside. And second, practicing solitude will enable you to listen to God in increasingly attentive ways. In the same way that the prophet Elijah heard the voice of God, not in the wind, earthquake or fire, but in a whisper (1 Kings 19), so, too, will you hear the God who, to quote A. W. Tozer, “has not bowed to our nervous haste nor embraced the methods of our machine age.”