Would you volunteer for solitary confinement? Very few people would and those that do find themselves in solitary confinement speak of how difficult it is and that it can have a detrimental effect on metal health. And yet solitude and silence are part of what it means to follow Jesus, albiet something we engage with voluntarily!
At St
Oswald’s we have been engaging with a course ‘Practicing the Way.’ Not so much a course as an encouragement to
live differently with the underlying phrase, ‘to follow Jesus, to become like
Jesus and do the things that Jesus did.’
https://www.practicingtheway.org/
Today I read
a weekly reflection from Rural Ministries and from their CEO Simon Mattholie and
he was speaking the same language, referencing the same material and books.
https://www.ruralministries.org.uk/post/be-still?mc_cid=0d8f0352d1&mc_eid=475fbb1f5f
As part of
the Practising the Way Course our Connect Group that meets in our home are
taking a deeper dive into one of the practises, Solitude.
The real challenge
for me was the suggested practise which involved laying everything to one side,
no phone or books or any ‘outside’ distraction.
I am not unfamiliar with going on a ‘Retreat’ or having a ‘Quiet Day’
but have always taken a book to read or something to do, paint or something
like that. This practise suggests absolutely nothing, just you, your thoughts coming
before God. This was very much the practise of the Desert Fathers and Mothers
who withdrew to the deserts of Egypt away from the hustle and bustle of life in
the towns and villages dotted along the bank of the river Nile during the 3rd
Century. Their reflections and writings
still offer much wisdom we can draw on.
More importantly we see that ‘… Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.’ Luke 5.16.
Put simply, if Jesus had the need to withdraw, can we expect to live a fruitful life as an apprentice of Jesus without following this practise.
However, that does not mean we should take ourselves off and away from everything. If we look at Jesus’ life we see a pattern of engagement and withdraw, engagement and withdraw.
This has also presented a challenge to me. Because as I am running or cycling I will almost always have something playing, usually a podcast, most often with some Christian or Biblical teaching. What I am now trying to foster is having listened to one podcast to leave space and not have any more ‘input.’ The deeper challenge however is that the ‘practise of solitude and silence’ invites us to sit still, no movement, no input from external sources, quieten and still everything including our minds that have a habit of jumping around. There are ‘techniques’ that can help with this, and one of them is to repeat a simple phrase, or a prayer like the Jesus Prayer. An ancient practise of repeating this prayer and regulating the breath - “Lord Jesus Christ Son of God, have mercy on me, a sinner."
The Practise of Solitude and Silence from ‘Practising the Way’ has a suggestion that before we reach for our smart phone in the morning that we intentionally spend at least two minutes catching our breath and focussing on God without any external stimulation or input. Two minutes is the start, by doing what we are able and how we are able and allow the practise to develop so that we can drop into this place of silence and solitude regularly and for longer periods. As Jesus’ apprentices we learn from him how we can develop the practise of simply sitting in companionable silence before God, loving and knowing we are loved. After all, we are human beings, not human doings!
Be still and know that I am God
Be still and know
Be still
Be
https://youtu.be/zBngAHsAMIY?si=dTn1k0BJKC1uu_r9
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