December14
I can relate to this post I just read today while distracting myself from some tedious work. The people that I am close to and who are in leadership spots in my life really value solitude and the sabbath. They are busy, but they take days, once a month or every 3 months, to go to a retreat center or a monastery to seek solitude and to pray and listen.
I want to do this too, but I admit that something in me really doesn’t enjoy the idea. If I’m alone all day I have no one to affirm me or keep me company. Something about sitting in silence all day seems uncomfortable. However, I know that this is a discipline that many that have come before us find vital in being a disciple of Jesus. At our women’s get-together last Saturday, Kay Osika told us that if we can’t honestly say we’re a disciple of Jesus, we should re-evaluate if we are truly Christians. She reminded us that the Bible interchanges the word Christian with disciple, and that this is not an easy, comfortable road. I’m reminded of stories that Tyler has told me of his time being discipled by our friend JD. He told me a couple times he didn’t like what JD had to say and would get up from the table with some choice words and leave, only to return the next week realizing that JD was right.
I don’t know if I can confidently call myself a disciple of Jesus. I know that there have been times in my life where I could, and even though I am confident in my acceptance and love in Jesus, and confident of being a daughter of God, I am a loose disciple at best.
I wanted to share some thoughts that I read on the Rabbit Room website today, written by Matt Conner. He wrote about what one of his friends said to him about leaving his solitude after only a couple hours:
“You failed. And don’t paint it any other way. You were afraid. It’s not a joke and it’s not something to pass off lightly. I’m disappointed in you because I know that you needed this. But you’re afraid of being alone and you left out of fear.” He was right. I’m afraid of what I look like when there’s nobody to impress. I’m afraid of what God might say to me or ask of me when I give him all the time in the world. I’m afraid of being, well, naked and ashamed as humans can tend to be.
I don’t think I’m alone in this. I look around and it’s hard to find anyone willing to endure the silence. I am surrounded by a culture refusing to allow stillness to find their soul, to allow themselves to be re-created. Wendell Berry says it best, I believe:
“There is indeed a potential terror of [silence]. It asks a man what is the use and what is the worth of his life. It asks him who he thinks he is, and what he thinks he’s doing, and where he thinks he’s going. In it the world and its places and aspects are apt to become present to him, the lives of water and trees and stars surround his life and press their obscure demands. Once it is attended to, admitted into the head one must bear a greater burden of consciousness and knowledge - one must change one’s life. If one has nothing within oneself with which to respond, it would be unbearable. If the silence within the man should be touched by the impenetrable silence that ultimately surrounds him, what might happen to the thin partition of flesh and possessions?
“In the face of that silence…no wonder he turns on the radio. No wonder he goes as fast as he can. Pursued into the wilderness by questions he is afraid even to ask, no wonder he finds his comfort - to his bewilderment, surely - in what he thought he wanted to be free of: crowdedness and commotion and hurry and mess.”
My thoughts exactly.
