From Silence to the Silence of Solitude: The Imperceptible Journey

[[Dear Sister, I think of silence as a negative thing; it is something which is the absence of sound or noise. I do understand a little of what you mean when you say it is more than this but only a little. Maybe that's because I have a hard time being really quiet in prayer and when I am quiet I am afraid nothing is happening or that I am experiencing dryness or something. I mean I don't hear anything and I am supposed to be listening for God. I don't feel anything and God is supposed to be there loving me. What am I missing?]]

Thanks for a great question and especially for sharing what is a pretty intimate experience and concern. First of all I can't really say if you are missing anything, much less what that is, but I can say a little more about the nature of silence in prayer, and especially what I and others call "the silence of solitude". I also want to say something about dryness in prayer and what might be happening to you which would certainly not be dryness.

Our first and more superficial experience of silence is a "negative" thing --- not in the sense of it being without effect or constructiveness, but in the sense of taking or stripping away that which is unhelpful. It involves the quieting of noise, both external and internal, personal noise and the noise of our environment. We each experience this whenever we assure that our prayer space is conducive to prayer; it is part of clearing the space of any clutter, of journaling about the things that are really bothering us or are a matter of concern so that we can close the journal and hand it all over to God when we sit in prayer. It is a matter of stilling our breathing, relaxing our muscles, dropping our defenses and any façade we may hold because of work, etc, and simply bringing ourselves to the moment in an act of self gift and trust.

Already I think it is becoming clear that in prayer we move imperceptibly into the realm of the "positive" dimension here. We move from the things we can more or less do ourselves, the setting of the scene, to the silence which is the work of the Holy Spirit within us ---- as much God's Silence as our own. The quiet act of trust we call faith is one of these. It is an empowered act, not something we can do of ourselves. That is why theologians like Paul Tillich speak about faith as the "state of being grasped. . ." and St Paul speaks of our knowing God but even more properly, of our being known by God. (Remember that Paul does not tease these two apart; he points to the first as a true description and then to the second as even more fundamentally true.) Profound silence is similar. While our descriptions of God often focus on creative speech or word, God is also and simultaneously a transcendent Silence out of which language and all the rest of reality springs; thus we often speak of God as "abyss," ground, or depth dimension --- all of which are most fundamentally matters of a deep but vital and dynamic silence.

In prayer what happens beyond the "negative" work of coming to relative silence we all recognize as our own work is that we are taken hold of by the profound Silence which is God. When this happens it is hard or even impossible to tease apart the silence we "achieve" and the silence that is "achieved" in us. It is at these times we know the communion with God and the whole of God's creation which is most clearly and profoundly what we call the silence of solitude . You may remember that I wrote, [[. . . the silence of solitude refers to what is created within the hermit, or better put perhaps, it refers to the person . . . who is created by the dialogue with God in the hermitage.  This is what I referred to when I spoke of shalom, or the wholeness, peace, and joy that is the fruit of an eremitical life. Much of the "noisiness" of human yearning and exertion is silenced; so is the scream of self-centeredness and the inability to listen to or hear others. One is at peace with God and with oneself; one is at home with God wherever one goes.]] All of this happens in prayer and is carried through the rest of the pray-er's life.

It is the Silence of God that stills our human yearnings and striving. It is the Silence of God that meets our own tentative and struggling attempts at quiet and completes them. It is the loving, embracing, silence of God that takes hold of us in prayer, soothes our stammerings and quiets our cries of anguish and emptiness. But it does so much more than this as well. God's own Silence is the silence that holds all things together in a way which makes sense of them; it is the all-embracing quies which makes music of the individual notes and rhythms of our lives and world. It is the deepest reality out of which all creation comes and all reconciliation is achieved, the hesychia in which everything truly belongs and is one. When and to the extent the Silence of God grasps us we become God's own prayers in our world, articulate words reflecting God's life and meaning, magnificats which are the transfigured stammerings of the journey from isolation and absurdity to genuine solitude and song. There is a reason Mary is sometimes called "a woman wrapped in silence"; only part of that has to do with her struggle and pain and inability to express what she knows and ponders in her own heart. The greater part has to do with the embrace of God which holds and makes sense of all things.

I think sometimes what people mistakenly call dryness is this incredible Silence. Maybe real dryness also means resisting this silence, fearing it and refusing to entrust ourselves to it, refusing to let it take hold of us or resisting resting in it even though we also yearn for it. Personally I know that I rarely feel dryness in prayer simply because I am not hearing or sensing anything. God is present and at work --- loving, calling, touching, healing, creating --- all the things God is and does in and as profound silence. I know and trust that. More, I know Silence as the Divine reality that can and does comprehend me even as it resides and sings within me. What I am encouraging you to do is to trust this Silence, this kind of no-thing, this abyss which is actually the fullness of God --- a fullness far too "big" (such an inadequate word!) to even perceive sometimes --- and don't label what happens in prayer as "dryness" quite so quickly or easily as you might otherwise do. From my experience I would say that what we are "listening for" is this transcendent and mysterious Silence. The love we are hoping to feel is actually an experience of this profound quies and sense of being encompassed and contextualized, the experience of being comprehended in every sense of that word by the Silence which is God.

As a kind of postscript, let me say that it is this Silence I think e. e. cummings knew when he wrote the wonderful poem I have had in the side bar of my blog since the day of my profession.





love is a place
& in this place of
love move
(with brightness of peace)
all places

yes is a world
& in this world of
yes live
(skillfully curled)
all worlds

Being Grasped by Beauty, a Critical Means to Faith

In today’s world there are several kinds of hermits. Most live in wilderness areas of great beauty --- deserts, mountains, redwood forests, and so forth. They choose these areas because they are isolated from people, relatively silent except for natural sounds, and of course, beautiful and awe-inspiring. Then there are hermits like myself. We are called urban hermits not only because of where we live but because we are concerned with witnessing to the redemption of what Thomas Merton once called the “unnatural solitudes" of cities. Even so, as persons of faith, and therefore of prayer, we are necessarily concerned with the ways beauty works in every person’s spiritual life.

You see, the truth is that Hermits living in natural wildernesses tell us something profound about ourselves, and about natural beauty and its relation to faith. It is a piece of what the author of the book of Wisdom is concerned with today (Friday, 15 November), namely, that before faith is our own act of knowing, or trusting, or professing our belief --- and certainly before it is an act of ministering to others, it is about being grasped or taken hold of by something larger than we are. Paul Tillich, a 20C. theologian called faith the state of being grasped by an ultimate (as opposed to a less than ultimate) concern --- where God is identified with such ultimacy and concern is a form of existential seriousness related to the promise and demand of that reality which has taken hold of us. Similarly Saint Paul tells us that in faith and prayer it is not so much that we know God but rather that we are known or comprehended by God.

We have all had this experience ourselves. Though it occurs for many most fully and explicitly in quiet prayer or in hearing a bit of Scripture that truly speaks to us, most often it occurs whenever we encounter beauty. It might be the beauty of nature or of a great symphony or other piece of music. It can be a great work of art or a piece of pottery or sculpture. It might be a work of literature which captures our imagination and inspires us to greater humanity --- but when it happens there is just no doubt that it comes from beyond us and is larger than the single instance of beauty we have just encountered. Something transcendent has taken hold of us. We even say about a piece of art, or whatever the source of beauty is: “It really grabbed me!” When this happens we will also find that it may have shaken or troubled us, surprised or shocked us, delighted or otherwise consoled us --- but always that it has inspired and inevitably enlarged us.

We need these experiences of beauty because they prepare us for true faith in the God Jesus reveals fully to us. Though these experiences, these mediators of beauty are not transparent to God in the way Jesus is, they prepare us to be known by God, to be grasped and loved by him -- even as they signal how immense he is and what a dignity we ourselves share. In other words they open us to a Divinity we cannot control and certainly cannot comprehend. Such experiences ask and assist us to be open at all times to the ultimate beauty and source of all lesser beauties which we call God. We need these experiences because they prepare us for true faith in the God Jesus reveals fully to us. Though these experiences, these mediators of beauty, are not transparent to God in the way Jesus is, they prepare us to be known by God, to be grasped and loved by him -- even as they signal how immense he is and what a profound dignity we ourselves share. In other words they open us to a Divinity we cannot control and certainly cannot comprehend. Such experiences ask and assist us to be open at all times to Ultimate Beauty --- the source and ground of all lesser experiences of beauty which we call God.

The author of Wisdom also asks that we do this. Implicitly he knows that faith is about being grasped whether by depth, or meaning, or beauty. And like St Paul and Tillich he knows that this experience raises questions of life and death, meaning and meaninglessness which invite us to live life seriously. He also has a warning: don’t mistake the beautiful tree or the lightening, or the fire for gods. We call that religious mistake pantheism. God transcends these things because he is their source and ground. Today the author of Wisdom’s warning would more likely take a different form for us: don’t mistake beauty, especially that of nature, for “all there is”. This mistake (the religion --- for it IS a belief system --- known today as “the new” atheism!) also diminishes nature and its wonder precisely in denying its source and ground. The form of atheism today known as “naturalism” or “scientific naturalism” is actually a refusal to allow the transcendent beauty of nature to take hold of us with the power to awe, shake, and transform which is so truly characteristic of it. This form of  less-than-truly-scientific endeavor generally seeks only to grasp, and comprehend, while in its arrogance it refuses to be taken hold of by something infinitely larger than it is.

The pres-
ence of beauty in our lives, our regular seeking it out and celebrating it and the One who is its source and ground, is imperative for our spirituality. Hermits know that unless one does this regularly in some significant way our capacity for faith can be stunted. Today’s reading for us is therefore a challenge to make sure we submit ourselves to the power of beauty --- that we allow ourselves to be grasped and illumined by it in whatever ways we choose --- music, literature, the arts, nature, etc. Our ability to be taken hold of and awed by beauty is, before anything else, a critical way to and preparation for genuine faith.