Let There Be Silence

Before Jesus chose the twelve disciples, Luke (6:12) tells us that Jesus spent the entire night in solitude. Right after he fed the five-thousand in Matthew 14, Jesus “went up into the hills by himself; and in Mark 6, Jesus taught his disciples to “come away by yourselves to a lonely place” after doing some very intensive ministry. It is rarely noticed how often Jesus retreated into silence and solitude.

One of my desires is to see the Church love this under-appreciated spiritual discipline. I agree with what Thomas Merton says in The Way of the Heart that solitude is “the furnace of transformation.”

Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote a book called Life Together. Though it is primarily a book about community, he dedicates an entire chapter to what he calls “the day alone.” He writes (read this quote carefully), “Let him who cannot be alone beware of community ... and let him who is not in community beware of being alone ... Each by itself has profound pitfalls and perils. One who wants fellowship without solitude plunges into the void of words and feelings, and one who seeks solitude without fellowship perishes in the abyss of vanity, self-infatuation, and despair.”

This month, our YMI students spent a week at Youthfront Camp South for “Solitude Week.” During most of the semester, our students learn the value of community (the day together). During solitude week, our YMI students learn the value of “the day alone.”

Any time not spent in silence, they spent processing their experience. Our hope is that the taste of silence and solitude will allow them to truly grow in their ability to see and hear Christ; and the taste will create an ever present hunger for communion with the Father. We pray this hunger will then be transmitted into the the larger body of believers to experience its benefit.