Why do we find silence and solitude so difficult? Why is it we seem to think we always have to have sound and entertainment all around us. For most even sitting in a car with no sound is difficult. These are are a few of the questions we will discuss in class tomorrow. I am excited to be able to lead the discussion with some great students at MACU.
A few quotes to make us think:
Dietrich
Bonheoffer notes, “we are so afraid of silence that we chase ourselves from one
event to the next in order not to have to spend a moment alone with ourselves,
in order not to have to look at ourselves in the mirror”
He also said in Life Together, “Let
him who cannot be alone beware of community . . . Let him who is not in
community beware of being alone . . . Each by himself has profound pitfalls and
perils. One who wants fellowship without solitude plunges into the void of
words and feelings, and one who seeks solitude without fellowship perishes in
the abyss of vanity, self-infatuation, and despair.”
Nouwen
teaches that the purpose of solitude is to:
Get rid of my
scaffolding: no friends to talk with, no telephone calls to make, no meetings
to attend, no music to entertain, no books to distract, just me—naked,
vulnerable, weak, sinful, deprived, broken—nothing…a nothingness so dreadful that
everything in me wants to run to my friends, my work, and my distractions…the
task is to persevere in my solitude, to stay in my cell until all my seductive
visitors get tired of pounding on my door and leave me alone. (Nouwen 1981,
17-18)
Antony said,
“He who sits in solitude and is quiet has escaped from three wars: hearing,
speaking, seeing: yet against one thing shall he continually battle: that is,
his own heart” (Waddell 1998, 69).
Thoughts?
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