Silence and solitude are not necessarily prized in our culture. In our fast-paced world of constant connectivity, we tend to forget that we hear best when we are in the midst of silence. Additionally, we see ourselves more clearly in the mirror of solitude. The practice of silence and solitude was once a crucial discipline in the spiritual health and growth of Christians. I'd like to introduce you to the discipline as a practice that is now a regular part of my daily life. Before I begin my lesson, I want to share a short story with you written in 1889 by Anton Chekhov titled "The Bet." The story illustrates the dramatic and transformational power of silence and solitude. Faced with ourselves, what will we learn? Will we allow silence and solitude to change us? Will it change our perspective?
“The Bet” by Anton Chekhov, a Russian writer of the last half of the nineteenth century, involves a wager between two educated men regarding solitary confinement. A wealthy, middle-aged banker believed that the death penalty was a more humane penalty than solitary confinement because, "An executioner kills at once, solitary confinement kills gradually." One of his guests at a party, a young lawyer of twenty-five disagreed, saying, "To live under any conditions is better than not to live at all."
Angered, the banker impulsively responded with a bet of two million rubles that the younger man could not last five years in solitary confinement. The lawyer was so convinced of his endurance that he announced he would stay fifteen years alone instead of only five.
The arrangements were made and the young man moved into a separate building on the grounds of the banker's large estate. He was allowed no visitors or newspapers. He could write letters but receive none. There were guards watching to make sure he never violated the agreement, but they were placed so that he could never see another human being from his windows. He received his food in silence through a small opening where he could not see those who served him. Everything else he wanted—books, certain foods, musical instruments, etc.—was granted by special written request.
The story develops with a description of the things the lawyer asked for through the years and the observations of the guards who occasionally stole a glance through a window. During the first year the piano could be heard at almost any hour and he asked for many books, mostly novels and other light reading. The next year the music ceased and the works of various classical authors were requested. In the sixth year of his isolation he began to study languages and soon had mastered six. After the tenth year of his confinement, the prisoner sat motionless at the table and read the New Testament. After more than a year's saturation of the Bible he began to study the history of religion and works on theology. During the last two years his reading broadened to cover many subjects in addition to theology.
The second half of the story focuses on the night before the noon deadline when the lawyer will win the bet. The banker is now at the end of his career. His risky speculations and impetuosity had gradually undermined his business. The once self-confident millionaire was now a second-rate banker and to pay off the wager would destroy him. Angry at his foolishness and jealous of the soon-to-be-wealthy man who was now only forty, the old banker determines to kill his opponent and frame the guard with the murder. Slipping into the man's room he finds him asleep at the table and notices a letter the lawyer has written to him. He picked it up and read the following:
“Tomorrow at twelve o'clock I shall be free, but before leaving this room, I find it necessary to say a few words to you. With a clear conscience, and before God, who sees me, I declare to you that I despise freedom and life and health and all that your books call the joys of this world. For fifteen years I have studied attentively the life of this world. It is true that I neither saw the earth nor its peoples, but in your books I lived. I sang songs, I hunted the deer and the wild boar in the forests. In your books I climbed to the summit of Elburz and Mont Blanc, and I saw from those heights the sun rise in the morning, and at night it shed its purple glow over the sky and the ocean and the mountain-tops. I saw beneath me the flashing lightning cut through the clouds. I saw green fields, forests, rivers, lakes and towns. I heard the song of the sirens and the music of the shepherd's reed-pipes. I felt the touch of the wings of beautiful angels who had flown to me to talk about God. Your books gave me wisdom. All that had been achieved by the untiring brain of man during long centuries is stored in my brain in a small compressed mass. I know I am wiser than you all. And I despise all your books, I despise all earthly blessings and wisdom. All is worthless and false, hollow and deceiving like the mirage. You may be proud, wise and beautiful, but death will wipe you away from the face of the earth, as it does the mice that live beneath your floor; and your heirs, your history, your immortal geniuses will freeze or burn with the destruction of the earth. You have gone mad and are not following the right path. You take falsehood for truth, and deformity for beauty. To prove to you how I despise all that you value I renounce the two millions on which I looked, at one time, as the opening of paradise for me, and which I now scorn. To deprive myself of the right to receive them, I will leave my prison five hours before the appointed time, and by so doing break the terms of our compact.”
The banker read these lines, replaced the paper on the table, kissed the strange, sleeping man and with tears in his eyes quietly left the house. Never before, not even after sustaining serious losses on change, had he despised himself as he did at that moment. His tears kept him awake the rest of the night. And at seven the next morning he was informed by the watchman that they had seen the man crawl through a window, go to the gate, and then disappear.
Silence and Solitude Defined
The Discipline of silence is the temporary and voluntary abstention from speaking. Sometimes it is practiced in order to read, write, pray, etc. Although there is no audible speaking, there is internal dialogue with God and with self. Sometimes silence is maintained not only outwardly but also inwardly in a more meditative state to allow God’s voice to be heard more clearly.
Solitude is the discipline of withdrawing or separating oneself to a place of privacy. The duration depends on the intended purpose and can last for only a few moments or for very long periods of time. It should, however, be a temporary and completely voluntary practice. Essentially, solitude is sought in order to participate without interruption in other Spiritual Disciplines or to be alone with God.
Naturally, silence and solitude are often practiced together. It is often recorded in the Gospels how Jesus went off by himself to pray. In his book, A Center of Quiet-Hearing God When Life is Noisy, David Runcorn writes, “Punctuation is a helpful way of thinking about Jesus’ relationship with silence and solitude. Jesus punctuated his life with silence and solitude. His times alone were the commas, pauses and full stops in the story of his life. They gave the rest of his life its structure, direction and balance. His words and his works were born out of those hours of silent waiting upon God.”[1]
Biblical Support
There are, of course, countless reasons for making the discipline of silence and solitude a normative practice. Below are two such important reasons:
Reason #1: To follow Jesus’ example.
Matthew 4:1, "Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the desert, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil." The Holy Spirit led Jesus into this lengthy period of fasting and solitude.
Matthew 14:23, "After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone.” He sent both the multitudes and His disciples away so He could be alone with the Father.
Mark 1:35, "Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed.” The previous verses tell us that after dark "the whole city" gathered at the door of the house where Jesus was staying. There He healed many people and cast out demons. But before it was daylight again, He went to spend time alone.
Luke 4:42, "At daybreak Jesus went out to a solitary place. The people were looking for him and when they came to where he was, they tried to keep him from leaving them.” We love to feel needed--the sense of importance/power/indispensability, that comes from doing something no one else can do. Jesus, however, did not succumb to those temptations. He knew the importance of disciplining Himself to be alone.
Reason #2: To hear the voice of God better.
Wayne Oates in his book, Nurturing Silence in a Noisy Heart, writes, “Some very important silences are indications that serious trouble is approaching, very near, or right upon you. You cannot afford to ignore these silences. You can ignore them; many people do so; no one does so safely. These silences are prophetic silences—they are filled with messages from God about critical conditions in your present, unlearned lessons from your past, and the shape of things to come for your future.”[2] Sometimes it is necessary to get away from earthly noise in order to hear from God more clearly. For example, Elijah fled to Mt. Horeb where he heard the “gentle whisper” of God's voice (1 Kings 19:11-13). Habakkuk stood guard at his post and kept watch to see what God would say to him (Habakkuk 2:1). When we are alone and silent, we can do exactly what Habakkuk was doing—listen! Richard Foster in his book, Celebration of Discipline-The Path to Spiritual Growth, writes, “Without silence there is no solitude. Though silence sometimes involves the absence of speech, it always involves the act of listening.”[3]
There are so many other reasons to practice the discipline of silence and solitude including, physical, mental and emotional restoration, worship, intercession, confession and simply to enjoy God’s companionship. It isn't absolutely necessary to get far away from noises and people in order to hear God speak to us—otherwise we'd never perceive His promptings in the course of our daily lives. There are, however, times to eliminate the voices of the world around us in order to hear the voice of God more clearly.
A Brief History of the Uses and Abuses of Silence and Solitude
Historically, the disciplines of silence and solitude have been variously used as an appropriate means of spiritual formation or less appropriately as a means to escape the difficulty associated with living in a sinful world. Philip Koch in his book, Solitude-A Philosophical Encounter, writes, “Criticisms have been launched on the grounds of prudence, sanity, and morality: solitude is empty, pointless, vain, foolish, lonely, and dangerous; it is unnatural, morbid, and pathological; it is self-indulgent, selfish, escapist, and evasive of social responsibility.”[4] Certainly there is some truth to these criticisms but they can hardly be considered true in all cases. No doubt there are some who have used the monastic life, for example, as a means to escape the responsibilities of their lives. However, it is going too far to say it is pointless and foolish in all cases. Tension results from the competing claims known as the “Active Life” versus the “Contemplative Life.” Koch writes, “The conflict between these two ‘lives’ is already discernable in the two sources of Occidentalism, Greco-Roman culture and Judeo-Christian religion. Succeeding centuries articulated and elaborated the conflict, reframing it to address their own particular concerns.”[5]
Greco-Roman Culture
From approximately 600-400 BC (the classical period) there was an emphasis on the total involvement of the citizenry in the affairs of the culture and derision for those who did not as witnessed by the saying, “A man who takes no concern for the good of the polis we hold to be good for nothing.”[6] Philosophers during that same time, however, identified solitary contemplation as the highest human good.
Centuries later in Rome, the debate turned to a life of public service as one option and retirement to the country seat as the other option. “Virgil, Pliny, and Seneca also celebrated the leisure, safety, rest, and freedom for study that solitary withdrawl provided—although the country estates they considered retreats were certainly not places of utter solitude, dependent as they were upon serfs and slaves.”[7] Other philosophers of this era believed that humanity is not specifically independent of each other or the state and therefore have a distinct responsibility to live in service and community to both.
Judeo-Christian Religion
The Hebrew people were essentially a model of communal relations. As such, there is great emphasis on the dynamic of living together. However, the practice of solitude is hardly a foreign concept in this context. Furthermore, solitude seems to be a natural part of living in relation to the God who adopted and set apart the nation of Israel for himself. For example, Moses lived in relation to all the people of Israel as their leader yet spent forty days on Mt. Sinai in solitude with God to receive the ten commandments. In fact, the Old Testament is replete with examples of prophets and leaders of Israel leading and living within the community of Israel yet separating themselves for times to be in communion with God. Some believe that many of the Psalms were written by King David while he was in the solitude of a cave. The prophet Elijah and Hosea as described above and many others spent time alone seeking God’s direction and comfort.
The pattern continued during the New Testament era as we see John the Baptist led into the desert for forty days to inaugurate his ministry and similarly how Jesus was led into the desert for forty days after his baptism to prepare him for his earthly ministry. The pattern continued as Paul spent time in the desert of Arabia after his conversion. This continued as “The Desert Fathers would seek to replicate this pattern of trial and enlightenment in solitude.”[8]
During the period between the first four centuries after Christ and the fourteenth century, there was a substantial breakdown in law, and consequently in security, in Europe and it became increasingly dangerous to be alone. A lone person often fell prey to “robbers and Vikings.”[9] During this same time, monasticism established itself firmly in the culture as a safe means of seclusion. Interestingly, the debate between competing monastic orders began to parallel the debate from the early Greco-Roman culture. “St. Basil forbade his monks to retreat into solitude, insisting that “the life of solitude violated the divine law of love and was injurious to the soul of the solitary in nursing a sense of self-sufficiency and spiritual pride. St. Benedict, on the other hand, still accorded the highest virtue to the anchorite.”[10]
During the period of the Enlightenment (18th century), philosophers tended to frown on monastic practices. However, toward the end of the eighteenth century and into the early Romantics period (late 18th to early 19th century), the practice of solitude began to re-establish itself. However, the practice focused primarily on self and essentially became a form of narcissism. During this time the new frontier was the wilderness of America and the debate continued as Puritans claimed that, “Frontiersmen who went alone into the great woods were…beyond ‘the power of example and check of shame’ having ‘degenerated altogether into the hunting state’ having become ‘no better than carnivorous animals,’ they show that man ‘cannot live in solitude, he must belong to some community bound by some ties.’”[11]
The debate in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries continues yet in a very different context. In the modern or postmodern capitalistic context, solitude would seem to be a natural virtue associated with individualism. However, the pursuit of the trappings associated with capitalistic cultures often conflict with the principles of silence and solitude. Communist, socialist and dictatorial cultures pose an interesting dichotomy to capitalistic cultures in that they insist that society is so interrelated either directly or indirectly that solitude is simply an illusion. It is interesting to note that often the people in these cultural contexts are so oppressed that solitude is there only means of relief. Consequently, those who have the natural opportunity to practice silence and solitude often neglect that opportunity while those who live in a context that discourages solitude clamor for its power of freedom.
[1] David Runcorn, A Center of Quiet-Hearing God When Life is Noisy, (Downers Grove, IL, InterVarsity Press, 1990), pp. 5-6.
[2] Wayne E. Oates, Nurturing Silence in a Noisy Heart, (Garden City, NY, Doubleday & Company, 1979), p. 83.
[3] Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline-The Path to Spiritual Growth, (HarperCollins Publishers, New York, NY, 1998), p. 98.
[4] Philip Koch, Solitude-A Philosophical Encounter, (Peru, IL, Open Court Publishing, 1994), p. 201.
[5] Ibid., p. 202.
[6] Ibid., p. 203.
[7] Ibid., p. 204.
[8] Ibid., p. 205.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Ibid., p. 214.
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