Tag Archives: silence and solitude

Daily Riches: An Uninterrupted Flow of Words … Silenced by Death (Thomas Merton and Simone Weil)

Posted on by under Silence, Solitude, Stillness

“Life is not to be regarded as an uninterrupted flow of words which is finally silenced by death. Its rhythm develops in silence, comes to the surface in moments of necessary expression, returns to deeper silence, culminates in a final declaration, then ascends quietly into the silence of Heaven which resounds with unending praise.

“Silence has many dimensions. It can be a regression and an escape, a loss of self, or it can be presence, awareness, unification, self-discovery. Negative silence blurs and confuses our identity, and we lapse into daydreams or diffuse anxieties. Positive silence pulls us together and makes us realize who we are, who we might be, and the distance between these two. …Words stand between silence and silence: between the silence of things and the silence of our own being. Between the silence of the world and the silence of God. When we have really met and known the world in silence, words do not separate us from the world nor from other men, nor from God, nor from ourselves because we no longer trust entirely in language to contain reality. …It is in deep solitude and silence that I find the gentleness with which I can truly love my brother and sister.

“If nothing that can be seen can either be God or represent Him to us as He is, then to find God we must pass beyond everything that can be seen and enter into darkness. Since nothing that can be heard is God, to find Him we must enter into silence.” Thomas Merton

“A mind enclosed in language is in prison.” Simone Weil

“May the words of my mouth
and the meditation of my heart
be pleasing to you,
O Yahweh, my rock and my redeemer.”
Psalm 19:14

 Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Is life as you live it “an uninterrupted flow of words?” If so, what does that say about you?
  • Have you experienced the love for others that can be discovered in “deep solitude and silence?”
  • Do you “trust entirely in language to contain reality?” Do you ever feel “imprisoned” by the limits of words?
  • Has time spend in silence shown you “who you are, who you might be, and the distance between these two?”

Abba, teach me a healthy rhythm that includes speech and silence, but may I know the world in silence.

For More:  Thomas Merton: Essential Writings edited by Christine Bochen

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek God and he seeks you. I hope you’ll follow and share my blog. My goal is to share something of unique value with you daily in 400 words or less. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

“I practice daily what I believe; everything else is religious talk.”

Daily Riches: Threatened by Toxic Media (Jayson Bradley, Mike Wallace, Eugene Peterson)

Posted on by under Awareness, Mindfulness, Self-care, Silence, Solitude, truth and illusion

“I found an incredible interview from the late 50’s with Mike Wallace. It came from a series called The Mike Wallace Interview that ran from 1957–1960. I was blown away that

  1. A show could exist in such a simple format
  2. There was a time when people used television as a vehicle to think about metaphysical questions
  3. People cared about thoughtful dialogue enough to keep this show on the air for three years
  4. It was publically acceptable for people to smoke that much

I fell into an entranced spiral watching video after video of Mr. Wallace interviewing interesting personalities like The Twilight Zone’s Rod Serling, Brave New World author Aldous Huxley, artist Salvador Dali, and German social psychologist Erich Fromm. …What does an interview program look like now? We barely have the attention span to sit through a 15 minute interview with Barbara Walters, and her celebrity interviews have neither the depth or substance of these powerful discussions. Can you imagine a program like this running on prime-time today? Nope, we’re creating lowest-common-denominator television now. We have the world at our fingers, and we’re perfectly content with Honey Boo Boo, Jersey Shore, The Bachelor, and Dancing with the Stars. After watching these videos for hours, I walked away sad that we’ve slipped into an intellectual entropy. Who’s going to save us from this cultural ghetto!?”  Jayson Bradley

“Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking.
Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. …
Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity,
God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.”
Romans 12:2 (Eugene Peterson, the Message)

Moving From Head to Heart

  • Do you abstain from from media often enough to be able to see through its ubiquitous nonsense? to recognize its dangers? to escape the grip of its propaganda?
  • Is your media consumption intentional, so that you protect your mind and heart?
  • Do you “fix your attention on God” in times of solitude and silence to center, ground and protect yourself?
  • Are you becoming insensitive to the sexual images? the ads? the profaneness? the inanity? oblivious to the time spent?

Abba, help me whether with media or otherwise, to recognize nonsense and illusion, and protect my heart, the source of all I am.

For More:  Amusing Ourselves to Death by Neil Postman

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek after God and he seeks after you. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it. My goal is to share something of unique value with you daily in 400 words or less. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

“I practice daily what I believe; everything else is religious talk.”

Daily Riches: Seeking God, Escaping Illusion (Thomas Merton – on his centenary)

Posted on by under Contemplation, contemplative virtues, Silence, Solitude, The Call to Change, thirsting and longing for God

“This is what it means to seek God perfectly: to withdraw from illusion and pleasure, from worldly anxieties and desires, from the works that God does not want, from a glory that is only human display; to keep my mind free from confusion in order that my liberty may be always at the disposal of His will; to entertain silence in my heart and listen for the voice of God; …to love all men as myself; to rest in humility and to find peace in withdrawal from conflict and competition with other men; to turn aside from controversy and put away heavy loads of judgment and censorship and criticism and the whole burden of opinions that I have no obligation to carry; to have a will that is always ready to fold back within itself and draw all the powers of the soul down from the deepest center to rest in silent expectancy for the coming of God, poised in tranquil and effortless concentration upon the point of my dependence on Him; to gather all that I am, and have all that I can possibly suffer or do or be, and abandon them all to God in the resignation of a perfect love and blind faith and pure trust in God, to do His will.” Thomas Merton

“So like a fish going towards the sea, we [monks] must hurry to reach our cell*
for fear that if we delay outside we will lose our interior watchfulness.”
Anthony the Great

“Any trial whatever that comes to you can be conquered by silence.” Abbot Pastor

“Go, sit in your cell, and your cell will teach you everything.” Abbot Moses

*an ancient term for a quiet, private place to be with God

“But when you pray,
go into your room [and]
close the door”
Jesus, in Matthew 6:6

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • What two or three aspirations in Merton’s words resonate most with you? Can you form a prayer around them?
  • The dessert fathers had a plan for escaping the grip of illusion, confusion and judgment, and for cultivating liberty, peace and “silent expectancy for the coming of God.” Do you have such a plan?

Abba, help me to abandon myself to you in the resignation of a perfect love.

For More: The Wisdom of the Desert by Thomas Merton

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These “Daily Riches” are for your encouragement as you seek after God and he seeks after you. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it. My goal is to share something of unique value with you daily in 400 words or less. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

“I practice daily what I believe; everything else is religious talk.”

Daily Riches: The Limitations of Words (Hermann Hesse, Ernesto Cardinal, Ruth Hayley Barton, Mother Teresa) *

Posted on by under Silence, Solitude

“When a person has grown old and has done his all, it is his task peacefully to make friends with death. He does not need other people. He knows them and has seen enough of them. What he needs is peace. It is not seemly to seek out such a person, to talk to him, to torment him with your chatter. At the gateway to his home the proper thing is to pass by, as if nobody lived there.” Hermann Hesse –  This was the notice on the door of his house upon award of the Nobel Prize for Literature.

“Whoever loves God wishes to be alone. Like newlyweds who do not want to have their intimacy interrupted by outsiders, those who have felt the love of God retire into silence and solitude.” Ernesto Cardenal

“In solitude and silence, we become quiet enough to hear a voice that is not our own.” Ruth Haley Barton

“… God cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence.” Mother Teresa

“… fools multiply words.”  Ecclesiastes. 10:14
“When there are many words, transgression is unavoidable,
but he who restrains his lips is wise.”  Proverbs 10:19
“The one who has knowledge uses words with restraint.”  Proverbs 17:27a

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Are you aware enough of the needs of others to know when to “pass by?” not to “torment them with your chatter?”  to “restrain your lips?”
  • Have you ever felt like a “newlywed” with God, wanting to “retire into silence and solitude” with him? If not, why not?
  • There is great value in silence. By silence we learn the limitations of speech. Are you able to refrain from words in order to let yourself hear “words that are not your own?”  for someone else to hear God’s words?

Abba, today I will hallow your name by leaving enough silent spaces to hear from you, waiting for my turn to speak, talking less and listening more, and speaking only out of love.

__________

For More:  Abide in Love by Ernesto Cardenal

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The “Daily Riches” from RicherByFar are for your encouragement as you seek after God, and as he seeks after you. My goal is to give you something of uncommon value each day in less than 400 words. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it with others. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

Daily Riches: Solitude and Silence in a World of Noise (George Orwell, Kathleen Norris and Peter Scazzero) *

Posted on by under Contemplation and Activism, Silence, Solitude

“It seemed to him that he knew exactly what it felt like to sit in a room like this, in an armchair beside an open fire with your feet in the fender and a kettle on the hob, utterly alone, utterly secure with nobody watching you, no voice pursuing you, no sound except the singing of the kettle and the friendly ticking of the clock. … To do anything that suggested a taste for solitude, even to go for a walk by yourself, was always slightly dangerous. There was a word for it in Newspeak: ownlife, it was called, meaning individualism and eccentricity.” George Orwell in Nineteen Eighty-four 

“The ordinary, daily practice of silence
is a prophetic stance in our world of noise.
It is one of the greatest gifts we can offer the world.”
Kathleen Norris

“Intentional silence serves as a necessary
and valuable counterweight
to a society filled
with thoughtless and excessive words.”
Peter Scazzero

“Tremble and do not sin; when you are on your beds, search your hearts and be silent.”   Psalm 4:4

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Do you know what it feels like to “sit in a room … utterly alone … [with] no sound?” Do you seek out or avoid such experiences?
  • In Orwell’s created world, to have your ownlife was considered “slightly dangerous.” Look at Scazzero’s quote again and consider why that would be.
  • Do you make the experience of solitude and silence a priority in your life? Is it reflected in some plan or schedule? If not, why not?

Abba, as I seek you in the silence of solitude, may I encounter reality, experience sanity and discover wisdom. I want to have my ownlife, not one choreographed for me by those who control the noise and nonsense – the disinformation, the mythology – of my world.

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“I’m for truth, no matter who tells it. I’m for justice, no matter who it is for or against.” (Malcolm X)  I love these words of Malcolm X , but I don’t agree with everything he’s said, written or done. The same is true for those who show up on the pages of Daily Riches. Eventually, writers and teachers from many diverse backgrounds will make an appearance here, and I offer their insights to you without any kind of vetting for “orthodoxy.” Sometimes we learn the most from those with whom we differ, and to turn only to those who are always right or reliable would eliminate everyone. My working assumption in Daily Riches is that the spirit of God will lead you into all truth. So I hope you’ll read, seeking to have your “truth” challenged, critiqued, and improved – and that a priori you’ll be for the truth no matter who tells it. That’s difficult but always worth the effort. Thanks for reading and sharing my daily blog. Bill (Psalm 90:14)

 

Daily Riches: The Life of Silence and the “Secret Vice” of Solitude (Antonin-Gilbert Sertillanges and Ann Morrow Lindberg)

Posted on by under Contemplation, Silence, Solitude

“Retirement is the laboratory of the spirit; interior solitude and silence are its two wings. All great works were prepared in the desert, including the redemption of the world. The precursors, the followers, the Master Himself, all obeyed or have to obey one and the same law. Prophets, apostles, preachers, martyrs, pioneers of knowledge, inspired artists in every art, ordinary men and the Man-God, all pay tribute to loneliness, to the life of silence, to the night.” Antonin-Gilbert Sertillanges

“As far as the search for silence and solitude is concerned, we live in a negative atmosphere, as invisible, as all pervasive and as enervating as high humidity in an August afternoon. The world does not understand today, in either man or woman, the need to be alone. How inexplicable it seems! Anything else will be accepted as a better excuse. If one sets aside time for a business appointment, a trip to the hairdresser, a social engagement, or a shopping expedition, that time will be accepted as inviolable. But if one says, ‘I cannot come because it is my hour to be alone’, one is considered rude, egotistical, or strange. What a commentary on our civilization, when being alone is considered suspect; when one has to apologize for it, make excuses, hide the fact that one practices solitude – like a secret vice.”   Anne Morrow Lindbergh

“After [Jesus] had dismissed them,
he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray.
Later that night, he was there alone …”
Matthew 14:23

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Have you experienced the kind of loneliness and silence that is the preparation for “all great works?” Is there any sense in which your life is a “life of silence?”
  • Do you understand the “need to be alone?” Do you practice solitude? If so, do you have to hide it from others like a “secret vice?”
  • It’s a “commentary on our civilization” that making time to be alone to care for yourself and seek out God should be considered “rude, egotistical or strange.” Are you determined to decide for yourself and leave the crowd behind if necessary?

Abba, teach me to nourish my spirit in the laboratory of the spirit which is solitude.

__________

For More: Gift From the Sea by Ann Morrow Lindberg

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Thomas Merton expresses my heart for Daily Riches: “If I dare, in these few words, to ask you some direct and personal questions, it is because I address them as much to myself as to you. It is because I am still able to hope that a civil exchange of ideas can take place between two persons — that we have not yet reached the stage where we are all hermetically sealed, each one in the collective arrogance and despair of his own herd.” I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it with others. (Psalm 90:14) . I appreciate your interest! – Bill

Daily Riches: Seeing Solitude as Intolerable (Blaise Pascal and Friedrich Nietzsche) *

Posted on by under Silence, Solitude, Stillness

“Man finds nothing so intolerable as to be in a state of complete rest, without passions without occupation, without diversion, without effort. Then he faces his nullity, loneliness, inadequacy, dependence, helplessness, emptiness. And at once there well up from the depths of his soul boredom, gloom, depression, chagrin, resentment, despair.” Blaise Pascal

“When we are quiet and alone, we fear that something will be whispered in our ears,
and so we hate the quiet, and dull our senses in society.” Friedrich Nietzsche

“I have become like a bird alone on a roof.” Psalm 102:7

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Do you find it “intolerable” when you’re alone with nothing to do and nothing to distract you?  to be “in a state of complete rest?” Do you “dull your senses in society?”
  • This experience seems pretty unpleasant, sometimes even dangerous (“despair”), and yet, isn’t Pascal commending it to us, and Nietzsche warning us about what we do? Why do you suppose that is?
  • Are you willing to face your “nullity [nothingness], loneliness, inadequacy, dependence, helplessness, [and] emptiness … in a state of complete rest?” What plan can you make to begin to try that? Who do you know who can help guide or encourage you?

Abba, I want to own my neediness and helplessness before you, and not dull my senses with vain distractions. Teach me to come into your presence and be at rest.

__________

For More: Pensees by Blaise Pascal

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These Daily Riches are for your encouragement as you seek after God, and as he seeks after you. My goal is to give you something of uncommon value each day in 400 words or less. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it with others as we seek to find our satisfaction in our unfailingly loving God. (Psalm 90:14) . I appreciate your interest! – Bill

Daily Riches: The Limitations of Words (Hermann Hesse, Ernesto Cardinal & Ruth Hayley Barton)

Posted on by under Silence, Solitude

“When a person has grown old and has done his all, it is his task peacefully to make friends with death. He does not need other people. He knows them and has seen enough of them. What he needs is peace. It is not seemly to seek out such a person, to talk to him, to torment him with your chatter. At the gateway to his home the proper thing is to pass by, as if nobody lived there.” Hermann Hesse –  the notice on the door of his house upon award of the Nobel Prize for Literature

“Whoever loves God wishes to be alone. Like newlyweds who do not want to have their intimacy interrupted by outsiders, those who have felt the love of God retire into silence and solitude.” Ernesto Cardenal

“In solitude and silence, we become quiet enough to hear a voice that is not our own.” Ruth Haley Barton

“… God cannot be found in noise and restlessness. God is the friend of silence.” Mother Teresa

“… fools multiply words.”  Ecclesiastes. 10:14
“When there are many words, transgression is unavoidable,
But he who restrains his lips is wise.”  Proverbs 10:19
“The one who has knowledge uses words with restraint.”  Proverbs 17:27a

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Are you aware enough of the needs of others to know when to “pass by?” not to “torment them with your chatter”,  to “restrain your lips?”
  • Have you ever felt like a “newlywed” with God, wanting to “retire into silence and solitude” with him? If not, why not?
  • There is great value in silence. By silence we learn the limitations of speech. Are you able to refrain from words in order to let yourself hear “words that are not your own?”  for someone else to hear God’s words?

Abba, today I will hallow your name by leaving enough silent spaces to hear from you, waiting for my turn to speak, talking less and listening more, and speaking only out of love.

__________

For More:  Abide in Love by Ernesto Cardenal

_________________________________________________

The “Daily Riches” from RicherByFar are for your encouragement as you seek after God, and as he seeks after you. My goal is to give you something of uncommon value each day in less than 400 words. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it with others. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)

Daily Riches: Intolerable Solitude (Blaise Pascal)

Posted on by under Silence, Solitude, Stillness

“Man finds nothing so intolerable as to be in a state of complete rest,

without passions without occupation, without diversion, without effort.
Then he faces his nullity, loneliness, inadequacy,
dependence, helplessness, emptiness.
And at once there well up from the depths of his soul
boredom, gloom, depression, chagrin, resentment, despair.”
Blaise Pascal

“I have become like a bird alone on a roof.” Psalm 102:7

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Do you find it “intolerable” when you’re alone with nothing to do and nothing to distract you?  to be “in a state of complete rest?”
  • This experience seems pretty unpleasant, sometimes even dangerous (“despair”), and yet, isn’t Pascal commending it to us? Why do you suppose that is?
  • Are you willing to face your “nullity [nothingness], loneliness, inadequacy, dependence, helplessness, [and] emptiness … in a state of complete rest?” What plan can you make to begin to try that? Who do you know who can help guide or encourage you?

Abba, I want to own my neediness and helplessness before you, to turn to you always and learn not to depend on myself. Teach me to come into your presence and just “rest.”

__________

For More: Pensees by Blaise Pascal

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The “Daily Riches” from RicherByFar are for your encouragement as you seek after God, and as he seeks after you. My goal is to give you something of uncommon value each day in less than 400 words. I hope you’ll follow my blog, and share it with others. I appreciate your interest!  –  Bill (Psalm 90:14)