Re-Arranging Our Lives: The Practice of Quiet (Silence IX)

It is very hard to allow emptiness to exist in our lives. Emptiness requires a willingness not to be in control, a willingness to let something new and unexpected happen.[1]

— Henri Nouwen

Jesus did not relate to quiet time as a task, but rather as way of abiding in the goodness of God. It was about communion, not about a checklist. Jesus actively looked forward to quiet time, because in solitude and silence, he grew in communion with his Father. He kept abiding in that crucial awareness of the Father’s love.

Through practice, we can develop the same posture that Jesus had. When the Scripture says, “Be anxious for nothing” or “Cast your cares” onto God, how do we do that?[2] The answer, quite simply, is practice; it will likely not come easy to us at first. As strange as it may sound, trust is something that we practice until our souls become accustomed to it. Over time, what felt awkward at first can come to feel normal and even natural.

How then, do we practice?

First of all, think about your life and schedule. Do you already engage a practice of silence? Quiet time with coffee in the morning? A regular ritual of quietly walking in the park? Anything that centers your soul in silence is a spiritual discipline. Running can be a spiritual discipline, as can a short walk or a long drive. If you are already engaging solitude and silence in such a way, keep going! The goal is to become aware of God and to be with God, abiding in His whisper.

More than likely, given the busyness of our world, your schedule is fairly full. How then can you prioritize—or keep prioritizing—silence in the midst of modern life?

It may help to start small. Personally, I’m not a big fan of setting clocks and timers for prayer—given my personality, it brings me too close to the rules and regulations of The Human Paradigm than I am comfortable with. However, if you find silence difficult, it may be helpful to try setting those sorts of concrete, doable goals, as they can start to give you a sense of the rhythm. Additionally, don’t discount even brief moments for quiet or silence. It really doesn’t take too much to bring us back to center. A few moments—even a few breaths—can have an immediate impact on our bodies and our spirits. Some people find it helpful to stop three times a day for a time of silence and prayer. Others set aside shorter times every day. Some set aside longer periods a few times a week. It is important to know and respect your personality and to be creative.

[1] Henri Nouwen. Bread for the Journey: A Daybook of Wisdom and Faith. HarperOne, 1997. Reading for February 28th.

[2] Philippians 4:6; I Peter 5:7

The Practice of Silence is Accepting Reality and Surrendering Control (Silence VIII)

Jesus’ testing in the wilderness were all about seeing how he would respond to his limits. Would he, in the process of being hungry, alone, and surrounded by silence, give up? The practice of silence is, in a similar sense, an embracing of our limits so that, like Jesus, we learn to be out of control and yet perfectly okay, confident we are held by God.

When I was fourteen, I went on vacation with my family. Growing up, my parents often had horrible fights that led to cold freezes, revealing a rage beneath the surface, threatening to explode again. On this trip to Florida, they had a spectacular fight. My brother and I sat on the backseat of the car, on our way back from the restaurant where it had happened, sitting in silence, just begging to get back to the hotel so we could escape to our room or anywhere else. But earlier in the day I had said I’d love to ride go-karts, and out of the blue my dad pulled into the parking lot of the local racetrack. I was surprised, but I couldn’t muster much excitement; my mind was numb from living through my parents’ fight. This frustrated my dad, since he felt that he was doing something kind for me, and he snapped, “You aren’t excited?” I tried to shift gears and muster some excitement.

My brother and I got into two go-karts and away we went. They were fast and it was fun, but it was still hard to shake the feeling that I was having fun under false pretenses, to make my dad feel better. Then, coming around the final turn, it happened: I was supposed to stop, and the summer help was flagging me down, absent-eyed, his mind a million miles away. But I forgot which was the brake and which was the accelerator. Suddenly I bolted back into full speed, right at the track worker. Suddenly, he was all electricity, jumping into the air like a cartoon, releasing his inner Michael Jordan, as I sped right under him, avoiding a manslaughter charge. Then I slammed on the brakes and screeched to a halt.

His flight was one of the funniest things I’ve ever seen, and my brother and I tumbled out of our go-karts trying, through our laughter, to hold it together. Then I discovered that my parents had seen the whole thing, because when we got back to them they were laughing hysterically, too. Suddenly, everything was perfectly okay. They seemed happy, my brother and I were laughing. The storm of the fight was forgotten. And a belief solidified within me, without me ever recognizing it: I’m in control. I can make things better. I mean, by accident I had just made things better, so if I tried hard, could always find a way to make things better. To control life.

This belief has caused me all sorts of problems, because life is not controllable. As a pastor, for example, there have been times when I felt I had done everything right, and therefore person A or B should respond how I wanted them to and how I felt they should. But they didn’t. Because the truth is, they are people free to do whatever they want, and I’m not in ultimate control. This is a painful truth, but a needed recognition: when we find our limits, we can find freedom, surrendering to reality.

Practicing silence is, I think, acknowledging that we are not in ultimate control. It places us, emotionally and mentally, anyway, in a position similar to Jesus being tested in the wilderness. It is acknowledging and embracing our limitations, that we need someone beyond ourselves. It is a way of acknowledging our need for God in the places beyond our understanding, beyond our even having words to pray. It is confessing that we are not in ultimate control—of God, of others, of life—and that only in this confession do we become free to live. It is what Jesus showed us not only in the desert but on the cross: the movement of spiritual life is always emptying of ourselves and placing ourselves in the hands of another. 

Your Brain as Highway, Part 2 (Silence VII)

Jesus constantly practiced transforming silence.[1] Jesus’ hands, like ours, often filled with anxieties and worries and cares; when that happened, he withdrew to empty his hands and then to slip them back into the hand of God, reminding himself that his Father’s love was enough. He ordered his days and weeks in daily liturgies that kept him open to the whisper of his Father’s voice. This is what a Slow Life of silence is all about: slipping our hands back into the generous hand of the Father. We must learn, through repeated practice, how to do this, recognizing His voice, which makes us strong and secure in our adoption. This is why Henri Nouwen defines prayer as simply “Listening to the voice that calls us ‘my Beloved.’”[2]

The creation of new highways in our brain can be laborious work. We crave stability, and we hate letting go of something that we’ve felt certain about, even if it’s something that keeps us miserable. That means that, as strange as it may sound, we may struggle letting go of our voices of self-hatred. We may be addicted to their familiarity, even if we abhor them. There is always suffering in following Jesus, even if it’s the suffering of letting go of what brings us misery.

Furthermore, our resolve will be tested, just as Jesus was tested.[3] Right after Jesus’ baptism, Satan tempted him three times, with hedonism (bread to fill his hunger), with egoism (jumping off the temple to be caught by God, demonstrating how great he was), and with materialism (wealth and kingdoms), asking him in essence to doubt that the Father’s love was enough to satisfy him. Just as it was with Adam and Even in Genesis 3, Satan tempted Jesus to trust some thing other than the love of God. In fact, this is the way that Satan tries to tempt us all, because pushing us to doubt the love of God is really the only tool he has to use against us. Each time, Jesus used Scripture to slip his hand back into the Father’s hand, saying, in essence, “I believe the story that my Father tells above anything else, and that’s enough.”

The work of spiritual life is often a process of discerning God’s voice—and discerning what is not God’s voice—and then of making a ruthless commitment to trust God, even when that may not seem like enough. This sort of ruthless trust is always transformative, if we will see it all the way through.
 

[1] See, for example, Luke 5:16 and Jesus’ habit of withdrawing at important or anxious moments, to pray, such as in Matthew 26:36ff.

[2] Henri Nouwen. Bread for the Journey: A Daybook of Wisdom and Faith. HarperOne, 1997. Reading for January 13th.

[3] Matthew 4:1-11.