Solitude, Silence, and Prayer

It is a three step program. Solitude, Silence, Prayer. But, right now you are imagining a pleasant mountain retreat for a weekend of relaxation with no TV and a few prayer times in the woods. That is not at all what Nouwen means. This Solitude, Silence, and Prayer is Hard Work.

Start with Solitude.

In solitude I get rid of my scaffolding: no friends to talk with, no telephone calls to make, no meetings to attend, no music to entertain, no books to distract, just me—naked, vulnerable, weak, sinful, private, broken—nothing. It is this nothingness that I have to face in my solitude, a nothingness so dreadful that everything in me wants to run to my friends, my work, and my distractions so that I can forget my nothingness and make myself believe that I am worth something.

A “nothingness so dreadful.” Think about that. Nouwen insists, “We have, indeed, to fashion our own desert where we can withdraw every day…”  Every day an encounter with nothingness.  By yourself.

Then silence. No words. He is really serious about that too. 

Silence is the way to make solitude a reality. The Desert Fathers praise silence as the safest way to God. “I have often repented of having spoken,” Arsenius said, “but never of having remained silent.”

We need, for example, silent preaching in our churches. Silent counseling.  Organize silent meetings. 

Then prayer. But not a wordy prayer. That uses the intellect.  Instead, we need prayers of the heart. Use simple, short (maybe one word) prayers uttered over and over until it takes over your whole being and you are indeed silently praying without ceasing.

Nouwen is not gently suggesting these things. He in insisting on them. You need to do these things. Now. And tomorrow…and tomorrow and tomorrow.  When you do so, you will hit elevated spirituality, like the Desert Fathers of old. And one day, you will arrive. How will you know when that is?  Nouwen closes the book thus: “by the time people feel that just seeing us is ministry, words such as these will no longer be necessary.”

Where to begin with discussing this maddening little tome? How about here, from the section on silence?

This might sound too unworldly to us, but let us at least recognize how often we come out of a conversation, a discussion, a social gathering, or a business meeting with a bad taste in our mouth. How seldom have long talks proved to be good and fruitful? Would not many if not most of the words we use be better left unspoken? We speak about the events of the world, but how often do we really change them for the better? We speak about people and their ways, but how often do our words do them or us any good? We speak about our ideas and feelings as if everyone were interested in them, but how often do we really feel understood? We speak a great deal about God and religion, but how often does it bring us or others real insight? Words often leave us with a sense of inner defeat. They can even create a sense of numbness and a feeling of being bogged down in swampy ground. Often they leave us in a slight depression, or in a fog that clouds the window of our mind.

Yougottabekiddingme. Really, this has to be a joke, right? Does Nouwen really have zero idea about the joys found in conversation? 

That problem generalizes all over the place. A solitude with no books is not only better than a solitude with books, the latter doesn’t even qualify as solitude? Silence should be our default state? Prayer using the intellect doesn’t even qualify as prayer?

Sure, I am perhaps the wrong audience for this book. I live my whole life in words. I read; I talk with people; I write; I give speeches and lectures and sermons. Words, words, words. What exactly is my life with no words?

But, before I hasten to simply toss Nouwen out the window, it is also worth noting that it would have been trivially easy for Nouwen to recast his book into something with which I would completely agree.

Solitude? Yes, we are completely bombarded every day with an endless array of stimuli. The cell phone alone is a constant interruption in our lives. We do need time away from all this. We need time to concentrate and in the modern world, you cannot concentrate unless you get away from the endless screaming of distractions.

Silence? Absolutely necessary for understanding God. Wittgenstein noted this at the end of the Tractatus. “Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.” The rest is silence. We necessarily hit a wall when trying to use words to contemplate God. He is beyond our comprehension. Sometimes we need silence, not words, just to experience things that are beyond words.

Prayer? Absolutely praying without ceasing can only be attained by losing the idea that the only form of prayer is running through a list of prayer requests.  Learning to commune with God is crucial. We need those groanings too deep for words that Paul describes in his letter to the Romans (8:26). That is real prayer.

In other words, I have absolutely zero disagreement with Nouwen about the ends he wants to attain. We are too busy, our lives are too cluttered and noisy, we compartmentalize prayer. We need a better view of what this relationship with God can be. The ultimate end is to draw closer to God.  Nouwen completely agrees with this end.

But, Nouwen is horribly confusing ends and means in this book. If in my solitude I draw closer to God by reading the Four Quartets and letting my mind wander over the ideas therein and in his solitude Nouwen draws closer to God by wrestling with nothingness and demons trying to drag him out the door, then is that a problem? Is it really a problem that maybe, just maybe, Henri Nouwen and I have different means to the same end?

The problem here is much bigger than the annoyance I felt when reading Nouwen’s book. The book is typical of a much larger confusion in the church as a whole. People in the church are constantly confusing means and ends. I have often met people who felt an immense shame that they were not following the Official Rules of How to Draw Closer to God.

Is it possible that maybe, just maybe, not all of us are the same? The confusion of means and ends has created much harm in the church. Far too many Christians have become convinced that the rituals, the solitude done just the right way and the silence done exactly this way and the prayer exactly in this form is the secret to leading a Christian life. 

But, all these rules are exactly what Paul condemns in his letter to the Galatians. If we need a list of rules to follow, “if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose” (2:21). When we in the church create these rules for others to follow, we are getting in the way of people actually discovering God.

So, if you would benefit from the solitude, silence, and prayer in the manner advocated by Nouwen then you should seek every opportunity to use these means. There is absolutely nothing wrong with the practices Nouwen describes. For some, perhaps many, they will be enormously beneficial. 

But, means are not ends, and the failure to properly distinguish those two things, the temptation to blur the line between them, causes much harm.