solitude

where I've been & a little lenten practice

library buddy

Hello my friends,

It’s me, still here!

I’ve been a bit off the map because I’m in the throws of directing little plays, receiving weekly rejection letters for my poetry, and wedding planning. For a mix of all these reasons (in addition to trying to balance paying attention to current events and not letting them drown me in worry), it’s been extremely difficult for me to manage to write anything lately. I’m practicing listening to the kind voice of the Spirit who says, “you’ll get back to it soon enough, just be present to this unique season,” and not the cruel voice of the Liar who is constantly saying to me, “GET BACK TO YOUR WRITING CHAIR AND WRITE YOU PIECE OF TRASH.” So mean!

I’ll have more to say soon, on living in this cruel and also beautiful world, becoming a married person, and a stepmom too, but for now, I want to share a short meditation I wrote for my church community this Lenten season. It’s about practicing silence and solitude in a time of noise, chaos and greed. My friend and pastor Jessie wrote the introduction, and I wrote the bit about solitude.

Enjoy and let me know what’s speaking to you these days.

introduction

Here’s a thought: You have a hidden life. There are parts of you that exist without us. Some might call this your “interior life,” or your “thought life,” or perhaps simply your “inner self”. But the connecting truth between all of those things is that they are hidden. I can’t access your thoughts and you can’t access mine (thank goodness), but our hidden lives are as true as any other part of us. We blindly pass each other at church and in our places of work, at our schools, in Winco and Costco and on the playground and the road, our inner thoughts tucked away in the deep soil of our hidden lives.

Does this sound familiar?

Consider thinking of “hiddenness” in two ways:

Jesus says, “Everything that is hidden will be shown, and everything that is secret will be made known. What you have said in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in an inner room will be shouted from the housetops”. (Luke 12:2-3) This is, of course, wildly unsettling to anyone with a sense of their own depravity. God give me grace on the day that all of my secrets and darkness are revealed! Just like Adam and Eve in the garden, my shame whispers at me from the shadows and the trees, away from community and love. This is my life hidden from God, from you.

There is, however, another kind of hidden life. Psalm 32:7 says, “You are my hiding place; you will protect me from trouble and surround me with songs of deliverance”. Psalm 17:8, “Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings.” Colossians 3:3 tells us “For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.” Here is our life hidden in God. Like a bird beneath his mother’s wings, so we gather under the protective grace of our Good Father. I am not only unashamed here, I am unafraid. I am safe.

Like roots growing down in the winter so that flowers unfold in the spring, we are spending this Lenten season nourishing our hidden places. In cold dark months the gardens lay fallow, but they do not lie dead. Soil quite literally restructures itself in the dark of winter, gathering energy and vitality in order to bring new life in the spring.

Imagine all of us as scattered seeds, taking root and growing in our hidden places, all over the city, quietly being nourished as winter comes to a close.

So we commit to letting the ground rest. To believe in the unseen work of God. To agree that yes, we have a hidden life. Yes, it forms us even when we aren’t paying attention. And yes, tending to those hidden spaces makes room for God to restructure the soil of our hearts. Remember? From dust we came, and to dust we will return. We are soil and we need a Good Gardener in these hidden winter months of Lent. So we will practice Spiritual Disciplines to rearrange our hidden lives and develop our quiet times alone, to become more like Jesus by doing exactly what Jesus did: Fasting, Prayer, Meditation, Studying, Solitude, and Confession.

solitude

Depending on your personality, the spiritual practice of solitude can elicit quite varied reactions. We might hear solitude and think:

“Thank God, I really need some “me” time, some time away from my spouse or my kids or my job or my (fill in the blank here).”

“Noooooooooooooooooooooo! I hate being alone, that sounds awful!!”

Or perhaps you’re in a particularly lonely season at the moment, and more “alone-ness” sounds like a cruel punishment, because what you’re longing for is a person, or a child, or something to fill up all the silence around you, to help you feel less alone.

Here’s the catch: solitude, often referred to as “silence and solitude,” does not mean “loneliness,” nor does it mean “me time” like watching TV or doing an eye mask. In the same way as the previous disciplines we’ve discussed (fasting, prayer, and meditation), solitude is removing one thing to make space for something to take its place; in this case, it is stepping into quiet, alone spaces with the intent to listen and be filled up with the Father’s presence. In his book, “Celebrations of Discipline,” Richard Foster describes solitude like this: “Jesus calls us from loneliness to solitude… Loneliness is an inner emptiness. Solitude is inner fulfillment.”

And later: “Solitude is more a state of mind and heart than it is a place. There is a solitude of the heart that can be maintained at all times… if we possess inward solitude we do not fear being alone, for we know we are not alone. Neither do we fear being with others, for they do not control us… whether or alone or among people, we can always carry with us a portable sanctuary of the heart.”

This is heady, but beautiful. Read that quote again really quick.

Silence and solitude are practices that we can carry with us at all times, no matter our surroundings, though having extended times in quiet and silence is vital. It’s actually about trust–trusting that God is enough for us when we are alone, and enough for us when we are with people. We do not have to prove ourselves with words or actions, because we have made a habit of resting in and listening to God intentionally in every moment of our lives, and acting from that place. We fill up in the quiet, and we then carry that “portable sanctuary” everywhere we go.

Jesus’ ministry was fulfilled because all of his actions (discipleship, justice, mission) flowed out of his time of silence and solitude with the Father. If we are going to live a life shaped like Jesus, we must do this too, even if it feels weird or uncomfortable, for our lives overflow out of the state of our heart.

You don’t have to go to the mountains for a week to start practicing solitude, though that would be awesome to do every once in a while. Here are some practical ways we can begin to cultivate solitude and silence into our everyday this week:

Practicing Solitude and Silence this week

1. Leave empty spaces empty; Pay attention to your “little solitudes.”

I often find myself thinking “there is just no way I can add something else into my busy schedule.” Maybe your work schedule is full, or maybe you’re constantly surrounded by kiddos at home. Whatever the conflict, typically we don’t have time every day to sit on a rock by the river and ponder our lives with the Lord. But what we do have is what Richard Foster calls, “little solitudes.”

Perhaps it’s five minutes in the car after drop off, or the moment between waking up and putting your feet on the floor, or taking a shower, or putting gas into your car, or waiting in line at a coffee shop.

I tend to fill up all those silences with, you guessed it, technology. I’ll have an audiobook or Netflix while I get ready, or scroll instagram at any time I have a minute or two. This lent, I’ve been attempting to leave those empty spaces empty, in order to listen to the Lord. Not to zone out, but to give the Lord a place to speak to me where I’m actually paying attention.

What might happen if we, instead, chose to approach those places as small sanctuaries, anticipating and expecting the Fathers’ presence? Work with what you have– forgo music in your morning commute, put down your phone, listen to your audiobook later– and see those “tiny snatches of time” as a place to cultivate “inner quiet, for reorienting our lives like a compass needle… that help us to be genuinely present where we are.”

2. Resist the need to justify your actions; trust God to be your justifier

A way to practice silence is to practice discerning when you actually need to speak. We are a noisy people; we feel the need to justify, to overexplain, to talk in circles to make sure our point is heard, to clarify our intention, to ensure people know our intent in a “frantic attempt to explain and justify our actions.”

This is something I do all the time, and it is something that Jesus never did. He spoke clearly, with intention, and did not speak when words were not needed. Often, even at the frustration of his disciples and the Pharisees, he acted with little to no explanation, because he trusted thatGod would be his justice. This week, let’s experiment with “doing deeds without any words of explanation whatever.” Allow God to be your justifier, and practice trusting him with your reputation and the way you are perceived. Maybe we’ll be surprised by the result, and find ourselves leaning on God in entirely new ways.