"Affliction is both a medicine if we sin, and a preservative that we sin not."
--Richard Hooker, The Works of Richard Hooker: Tractates and Sermons
"We mostly spend [our] lives conjugating three verbs: to Want, to Have, and to Do. . . forgetting that none of these verbs have any ultimate significance, except so far as they are transcended by the fundamental verb, to Be."
Evelyn Underhill, The Spiritual Life
07 July 2009
Solitude
"It is good to be solitary, for solitude is difficult; that something is difficult must be a reason the more for us to do it."
Rainer Maria Rilke
"Solitude vivifies; isolation kills"
Joseph Roux
Rainer Maria Rilke
"Solitude vivifies; isolation kills"
Joseph Roux
Silence
"Silence is frightening because it strips us as nothing else does, throwing us upon the stark realities of our life."
-Dallas Willard, "The Spirit of the Disciplines"
"True silence is the rest of the mind; it is to the spirit what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment."
--William Penn
"Under all speech that is good for anything there lies a silence that is better. Silence is a Eternity; speech is shallow as Time."
--Thomas Carlyle
"Spiteful words can hurt your feelings but silence breaks your heart."
"Music and silence combine strongly because music is done with silence, and silence is full of music."
--Marcel Marceau
-Dallas Willard, "The Spirit of the Disciplines"
"True silence is the rest of the mind; it is to the spirit what sleep is to the body, nourishment and refreshment."
--William Penn
"Under all speech that is good for anything there lies a silence that is better. Silence is a Eternity; speech is shallow as Time."
--Thomas Carlyle
"Spiteful words can hurt your feelings but silence breaks your heart."
"Music and silence combine strongly because music is done with silence, and silence is full of music."
--Marcel Marceau
05 July 2009
The Value of Silence
Lately, I have realizing that I am finding it hard to work in silence. I always seem to be multi-tasking: watching TV or a movie and working on the computer at the same time, sometimes even adding background music to the sound/media cocktail. I don't know exactly when this started, but it's been a while now since I worked in absolute silence.
I don't know if it is a subconscious attempt to fill the emptiness I've been feeling for so long, but I have a feeling it is very close to the truth.
I haven't been very busy schedule-wise lately: Oh, I've been doing things, but I haven't really (or so it seems at the moment) been accomplishing very much.
I think I just did not want to be reminded of the spiritual wall I had erected in the last months (and months) which has only within the last day or so begun coming down again. If I filled my life with media, things, and busyness, maybe I would not have to face the truth.
I have been alone in a house for three days this weekend after being with people in close quarters for a week. And although I was alone, more or less, for the month before, it is only now that the silence and the solitude have broken in and I feel the empty place I have been trying to fill with layers and layers of distractions.
The melancholy loneliness I felt a couple days ago begins to make sense: I am really, truly lonely for my Beloved Saviour. My heart begins to yearn for HIM again, instead of trying to push him away.
Sonnet XIV--John Donne
Batter my heart, three-personed God; for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurped town, to another due,
Labor to admit you, but O, to no end;
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betrothed unto your enemy.
Divorce me, untie or break that knot again;
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.
He has done it, despite all my attempts to keep Him out.
I am my own enemy, the enemy line 10 speaks of, and the wall has finally cracked a little under the battering ram of solitude and silence.
It has become to me a reminder of the necessity of silence in our lives, both physical and spiritual silence. It is in the silence where we hear God speaking to us. By filling our lives with things, busyness, and media of all shapes and kinds (and how can we avoid it for long in our society) we block out the silent place where we commune heart to Heart with the Lord. And it becomes easier and easier to keep that place blocked up and "full" so that our conscience cannot prick and stab us. We disconnect from our ability to feel--to feel our sin and our need.
This is where the Wilderness time experienced by so many of the Bible saints and the New Testament church fathers becomes relevant for us today. We need to learn to go into the Wilderness and just LISTEN. We do not have to DO or try to be or feel spiritual, we just have to sit and be still and silent and LISTEN for God's "still, small voice." If we wait on Him, He will come to us.
I don't know if it is a subconscious attempt to fill the emptiness I've been feeling for so long, but I have a feeling it is very close to the truth.
I haven't been very busy schedule-wise lately: Oh, I've been doing things, but I haven't really (or so it seems at the moment) been accomplishing very much.
I think I just did not want to be reminded of the spiritual wall I had erected in the last months (and months) which has only within the last day or so begun coming down again. If I filled my life with media, things, and busyness, maybe I would not have to face the truth.
I have been alone in a house for three days this weekend after being with people in close quarters for a week. And although I was alone, more or less, for the month before, it is only now that the silence and the solitude have broken in and I feel the empty place I have been trying to fill with layers and layers of distractions.
The melancholy loneliness I felt a couple days ago begins to make sense: I am really, truly lonely for my Beloved Saviour. My heart begins to yearn for HIM again, instead of trying to push him away.
Sonnet XIV--John Donne
Batter my heart, three-personed God; for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurped town, to another due,
Labor to admit you, but O, to no end;
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly I love you, and would be loved fain,
But am betrothed unto your enemy.
Divorce me, untie or break that knot again;
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.
He has done it, despite all my attempts to keep Him out.
I am my own enemy, the enemy line 10 speaks of, and the wall has finally cracked a little under the battering ram of solitude and silence.
It has become to me a reminder of the necessity of silence in our lives, both physical and spiritual silence. It is in the silence where we hear God speaking to us. By filling our lives with things, busyness, and media of all shapes and kinds (and how can we avoid it for long in our society) we block out the silent place where we commune heart to Heart with the Lord. And it becomes easier and easier to keep that place blocked up and "full" so that our conscience cannot prick and stab us. We disconnect from our ability to feel--to feel our sin and our need.
This is where the Wilderness time experienced by so many of the Bible saints and the New Testament church fathers becomes relevant for us today. We need to learn to go into the Wilderness and just LISTEN. We do not have to DO or try to be or feel spiritual, we just have to sit and be still and silent and LISTEN for God's "still, small voice." If we wait on Him, He will come to us.
Musings
Republished from my blog From the Wilderness
I was sitting in front of my computer just now, hoping to write something, something, hopefully, poetic. The thought has been hovering around the edges of my brain that all I have been doing lately is posting other people's words and none, really, of my own. Even my devotional journal exhibits this same tendency at the moment. As a person who sets a lot of stock in self-expression and creativity--even if it is just in my interior monologue--I've been feeling cut off from my usual means of self-expression; I haven't felt the fire to write for some time (and by write I mean seriously write, not "just" journalistic-style entries). I haven't been writing prose, I haven't been writing poetry. I'm in the middle of a nasty flu/head cold thing that leaves me hardly able to talk, let alone sing--which I really wanted to do this morning and couldn't. I feel stopped up--literally and figuratively--as though I am hardly able to move through the mud I like to call my brain. I'm hoping that this mud will turn out to be fertile silt, but until it does, I feel unexpressed.
It struck me, however, that maybe sometimes we aren't meant to express ourselves. Perhaps sometimes we are meant to be silent, not speak for ourselves. Perhaps we serve a different function at these times, acting as echoes for other people's self-expression. We take in the efforts of others' creativity and reflect it out into the world again. We act as sound boards, resonators, amplifying the expressions of others. Perhaps, we, by taking in other people's art, make it bigger.
It made me wonder if maybe there are implications in this for our spiritual lives. Perhaps there are times, even seasons, where we act primarily as God's echoes, not His messengers. Perhaps the times when we feel stifled, confined, "hedged in," are the times when the expressions of the great Creator--His Word, His Love, His Everything--are reflected off our lives into the lives of others. And, maybe, the reason we do not see the ripples in the pond is because we are the stones thrown into the water.
I was sitting in front of my computer just now, hoping to write something, something, hopefully, poetic. The thought has been hovering around the edges of my brain that all I have been doing lately is posting other people's words and none, really, of my own. Even my devotional journal exhibits this same tendency at the moment. As a person who sets a lot of stock in self-expression and creativity--even if it is just in my interior monologue--I've been feeling cut off from my usual means of self-expression; I haven't felt the fire to write for some time (and by write I mean seriously write, not "just" journalistic-style entries). I haven't been writing prose, I haven't been writing poetry. I'm in the middle of a nasty flu/head cold thing that leaves me hardly able to talk, let alone sing--which I really wanted to do this morning and couldn't. I feel stopped up--literally and figuratively--as though I am hardly able to move through the mud I like to call my brain. I'm hoping that this mud will turn out to be fertile silt, but until it does, I feel unexpressed.
It struck me, however, that maybe sometimes we aren't meant to express ourselves. Perhaps sometimes we are meant to be silent, not speak for ourselves. Perhaps we serve a different function at these times, acting as echoes for other people's self-expression. We take in the efforts of others' creativity and reflect it out into the world again. We act as sound boards, resonators, amplifying the expressions of others. Perhaps, we, by taking in other people's art, make it bigger.
It made me wonder if maybe there are implications in this for our spiritual lives. Perhaps there are times, even seasons, where we act primarily as God's echoes, not His messengers. Perhaps the times when we feel stifled, confined, "hedged in," are the times when the expressions of the great Creator--His Word, His Love, His Everything--are reflected off our lives into the lives of others. And, maybe, the reason we do not see the ripples in the pond is because we are the stones thrown into the water.
Always
Can I have a moment of your time
And leave this far behind
Can you find the time to take a chance
Just walk with me tonight
Even though the rain must fall
Baby that will pass
Listen to the words I say
I've saved them just for you
You're safe with me tonight
And Always
As sure as this full moon
And Always
Lets sit around and shed those lonely tears
While days turn into years
Even though the rain must fall
Baby that will pass
Listen to the words I say
I've saved them just for you
You're safe with me tonight
And Always
As sure as this full moon
And Always
Nothing lasts not the good times or the bad
They all just become the past
Sometimes your heart can turn on dime
What made you cry will one day make you smile
You're safe with me tonight
And Always
As sure as this full moon
You're safe with me tonight
And Always
These lyrics come from a song of the same name, on a CD entitled "Two Shots" by the Toronto Jazz singer, Matt Dusk.
I was really blue, in a real "Mood Indigo," one night, feeling lonely and teary and everything a single girl feels when she's overtired and awake at one in the morning. I was asking God for help to go on, wondering why I was/am still single and feeling oh-so-lonely, when this song came on. Now I'd listened to this CD quite a few times before and never particularly noticed this song, but that night, it became mine, my love song from God.
I knew that through this song God was asking me to really spend time in relationship with Him and reminding me of His constant protection. The assurance and love was overwhelming and I just broke down in full out sobs of gratitude.
And I have to remind myself that His love is even surer than the "full moon" since He is the one who created it in the first place.
Now more than two years since I originally posted this on my From the Wilderness blog, it still holds true.
And leave this far behind
Can you find the time to take a chance
Just walk with me tonight
Even though the rain must fall
Baby that will pass
Listen to the words I say
I've saved them just for you
You're safe with me tonight
And Always
As sure as this full moon
And Always
Lets sit around and shed those lonely tears
While days turn into years
Even though the rain must fall
Baby that will pass
Listen to the words I say
I've saved them just for you
You're safe with me tonight
And Always
As sure as this full moon
And Always
Nothing lasts not the good times or the bad
They all just become the past
Sometimes your heart can turn on dime
What made you cry will one day make you smile
You're safe with me tonight
And Always
As sure as this full moon
You're safe with me tonight
And Always
These lyrics come from a song of the same name, on a CD entitled "Two Shots" by the Toronto Jazz singer, Matt Dusk.
I was really blue, in a real "Mood Indigo," one night, feeling lonely and teary and everything a single girl feels when she's overtired and awake at one in the morning. I was asking God for help to go on, wondering why I was/am still single and feeling oh-so-lonely, when this song came on. Now I'd listened to this CD quite a few times before and never particularly noticed this song, but that night, it became mine, my love song from God.
I knew that through this song God was asking me to really spend time in relationship with Him and reminding me of His constant protection. The assurance and love was overwhelming and I just broke down in full out sobs of gratitude.
And I have to remind myself that His love is even surer than the "full moon" since He is the one who created it in the first place.
Now more than two years since I originally posted this on my From the Wilderness blog, it still holds true.
Tune Me
Tune me, o Lord, into one harmony
With Thee, one full responsive vibrant chord:
Unto Thy praise all love and melody,
Tune me, o Lord.
Thus need I flee nor death, nor fire, nor sword:
A little while these be, then cease to be,
And sent by Thee not these should be abhorred.
Devil and world, gird me with strength to flee,
To flee the flesh, and arm me with Thy word:
As Thy Heart is to my heart, unto Thee
Tune me, o Lord.
Christina Rossetti
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
