The well-known French essayist and poet Charles Baudelaire (1821–1867) once lamented, “Oh, how weary I am, how weary I’ve been for many years already, of this need to live twenty-four hours every day!”
I feel that.
And yet, even though our weary and parched souls ache for rest and rehydration, our schedules continue to outpace our stamina. Alas, this is the human condition—or is it?
The mothers and fathers of our faith prioritized the three S’s: Silence, solitude, and Sabbath. Why don’t we? Why don’t I?
The three things I liked this week center around these three disciplines, along with some reflections and practices you might find helpful.
Silence – Why do we not prioritize the practice of sitting in silence? According to the great spiritual writers of the past, it’s because silence frightens us. Carrying the torch of those before him, in his book Beginning to Pray, Anthony Bloom writes:
Settle down in your room at a moment when you have nothing else to do. Say “I am now with myself,” and just sit with yourself. After an amazingly short period of time you will most likely feel bored. This teaches us a very useful thing. . . . Why is this so? It is so because we have so little to offer to our own selves as food for thought, for emotion and for life. If you watch your life carefully you will discover quite soon that we hardly ever live from within outwards; instead we respond to incitement, to excitement. In other words, we live by . . . reaction. . . . We are completely empty, we do not act from within ourselves but accept as our life a life which is actually fed in from outside; we are used to things happening which compel us to do other things. How seldom can we live simply by means of the depth and the richness we assume that there is within ourselves (p. 41).
I dare you to take Bloom’s challenge this week. Set aside ten minutes, remove every distraction, and simply sit with yourself. What do you discover? Have you learned to live from within—from a heart nourished by communion with God—or are you living almost entirely by reaction to whatever is happening around you?
A neglected inner life rarely remains a private problem. It shapes the way we relate to others, especially those closest to us: Our spouses, children, and friends.
Solitude – Blaise Pascal (1623–1662) famously stated that “the sole cause of man’s unhappiness is that he does not know how to stay quietly in his room” (p. 67). Pascal wasn’t saying that solitude solves all our problems. He was spotlighting how our need for distraction exposes our inner restlessness.
And this is where his statement intersects with Bloom’s observation above. Remember: When left alone, Bloom says we discover how little we have to offer ourselves as “food for thought, for emotion and for life.” And Pascal would agree. But he’d also take it one step further: The emptiness we discover isn’t merely psychological. It’s spiritual. We were made for God, and “until we find our rest in him” (to quote Augustine), we will continue to seek distraction because we feel the ache of a need we cannot name. Only when God graciously opens our eyes do we recognize that the restlessness we have spent our lives trying to escape is ultimately a longing for him.
So, I’m just wondering: What happens when the phone is off, the laptop is closed, the television is silent, the work is finished, and no one needs anything from you? How does that feel to you?
If that prospect feels intolerable, Pascal would say you’ve discovered something important about the state of your soul.
Sabbath – Dane Ortlund writes, “The Sabbath has been put in place for God’s people to show us that he is a God of rest and that in turning to him we ourselves find our true rest. The Sabbath was not instituted merely to be another rule for God’s people to keep (Mark 2:27). It is a gracious gift in order for God’s people to gain a foretaste of the final rest in the new heavens and new earth we will one day enjoy” (260).
I wonder what it might look like for you to use a portion of your Sabbath to ask yourself a modified version of the questions God asked Adam after his fall into sin:
- Where are you? (The question centers on the depth of your connection to God, others, and yourself)
- Who told you it had to be this way? (The question exposes the counter-narratives we tell ourselves as opposed to the Story of the gospel)
- Where have you taken your hunger? (The question calls us to reflect on where we’re truly attempting to quench our soul-thirsts)
I wonder what you’ll discover.
Recent Comments