solitude on Perspective

In her book Invitation to Retreat , Ruth Haley Barton shares some of the many insights she has had since she began intentionally taking inattentional retreats to re-connect with God and her own d...

In solitude we are in the presence of mere matter (even the sky, the stars, the moon, trees in blossom), things of less value (perhaps) than a human spirit. Its value lies in the greater possibility o...

Entering the wilderness is a larger metaphor for dealing with our own demons, our own motivations, be they good or bad. In this short excerpt, Annie Dillard shares the value of entering the wilderness...

The normal course of day-to-day human interactions locks us into patterns of feeling, thought, and action that are geared to a world set against God. Nothing but solitude can allow the development of ...

Your religion is what you do with your solitude

The fascination with silence took root early in the life of composer John Cage. In 1928, during a speech contest at Los Angeles High School, he argued for the establishment of a national day of quiet....

The Fast-Paced Gospel “Immediacy” defines the Gospel of Mark’s rendition of Jesus’ ministry. Its fast pace reads like a comic strip of heroic proportions. Before one miraculous event is over another ...

Preaching Commentary The Fast-Paced Gospel “Immediacy” defines the Gospel of Mark’s rendition of Jesus’ ministry. Its fast pace reads like a comic strip of heroic proportions. Before one miraculous...

Solitude... keeps us from making judgments about other people’s sins. In this way real forgiveness becomes possible. The following desert story offers a good illustration: A brother . . . committed...

Jesus’ actions, in and of themselves, often make no sense unless we see them as responses to some hidden invitation—an invitation received from time spent alone with his Father. When Jesus was interru...

A spiritual discipline or practice is a way of creating some open and free space in which God can move an speak. For example, the discipline of solitude helps us spend time with God alone and so becom...

We live, in fact, in a world starved for solitude, silence, and private: and therefore starved for meditation and true friendship.

A simple refusal motivates my argument: refusal to believe that the present time and place, and the people who are here with us, are somehow not enough. Platforms such as Facebook and Instagram act li...

The problem we face today needs very little time for its statement. Our lives in a modern city grow too complex and overcrowded. Even the necessary obligations which we feel we must meet grow overnigh...

The friend of silence draws near to God.

Reading is that fruitful miracle of a communication in the midst of solitude.

God is infinitely patient. He will not push himself into our lives. He knows the greatest thing he has given us is our freedom. If we want habitually, even exclusively, to operate from the level of ou...

People who take the time to be alone usually have depth, originality, and quiet reserve.

Loneliness is inner emptiness. Solitude is inner fulfillment.

The practices of solitude, silence and listening to God started to slow me down and enabled me to focus my attention more and more on coming to Jesus and following him rather than talking about Jesus ...

Our language has wisely sensed these two sides of man’s being alone. It has created the word “loneliness” to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word “solitude” to express the glor...

I sit in a bright-lit June meadow at the Abbey of Gethsemani, a Trappist monastery in Kentucky. It is early afternoon, and I have been here since morning in what can only be described as an uneasy sol...

Everybody needs beauty as well as bread.

Solitude sometimes is best society.

These days, a common trick people use to remember someone they’ve just met is to save their first name along with the place where they met them—like “Matt PTA,” for example. I recently realized I stil...

To take time for silence and solitude means we assume that God wants to speak to us and relate to us in a personal way. . . . we learn to converse with God and hear God—first in solitude, then in all ...

Solitude is rich but seldom hilarious.

Without great solitude, no serious work is possible.

In his excellent book, Recapturing the Wonder: Transcendent Faith in a Disenchanted World , Mike Cosper explains the value in persevering through the difficult realities of practicing solitude. ...

Solitude, silence, and the strait keeping of the heart, are the foundations and grounds of a spiritual life.