“Solitude, silence, and stillness are the quintessential qualities of contemplative prayer and practice.”
Heuertz, Christopher L. The Sacred Enneagram: Finding Your Unique Path to Spiritual Growth. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2017), page 169.
not just break time
“Two classic practices spiritual seekers have used through the ages to open themselves to knowing and hearing God more deeply. Solitude and silence are not self-indulgent exercises for when an overcrowded soul needs a little time to itself. Rather, they are concrete ways of opening to the presence of God beyond human effort and beyond the human constructs that cannot fully contain the Divine.” (p. 31)
Barton, Ruth Haley. Invitation to Solitude and Silence: Experiencing God’s Transforming Presence. (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2004) page 31.
just doing it
“The most important thing about solitude and silence is, at some point, to stop talking about it and reading about and thinking about [it] and ‘just do it!’ as the Nike commercial admonishes. But a little guidance can be helpful….”
Barton, Ruth Haley. Invitation to Solitude and Silence: Experiencing God’s Transforming Presence. (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2004) page 37.
Elijah’s solitude of refreshment
“God’s intention was not for Elijah to stay in solitude forever; it was that he return to his prophetic ministry rested and recalibrated through the wisdom he had received. Now Elijah had guidance for how to go back more wisely with consideration for his true limitations. He was able to reenter life in the company of others with staying power that sustained him until the end of his life on earth.” (p. 118)
Barton, Ruth Haley. Invitation to Solitude and Silence: Experiencing God’s Transforming Presence. (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2004) page 118.
on guard
“Yet the fact remains that solitude, once understood and arranged for, must be obstinately defended.”
Sertillanges, Antonin G., O.P. The Intellectual Life: its Spirit, Conditions, Methods. (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1987) page 99.
smile, but avoid the crowds
“Therefore, be slow to speak and slow to go to those places where people speak, because in many words the spirit is poured out like water; by your amiability to all, purchase the right to frequent only a few whose society is profitable; avoid, even with these, the excessive familiarity which drags one down and away from one’s purpose; do not run after news that occupies the mind to no purpose; do not busy yourself with the sayings and doings of the world, that is with such as have no moral or intellectual bearing; avoid useless comings and goings which waste hours and fill the mind with wandering thoughts. These are the conditions of that sacred thing, quiet recollection.”
Sertillanges, Antonin G., O.P. The Intellectual Life: its Spirit, Conditions, Methods. (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1987) page 47
right solitude
“I will never be able to find myself if I isolate myself from the rest of mankind as if I were a different kind of being.
“Some men have perhaps become hermits with the thought that sanctity involved some kind of escape from other men. But the only justification for a life of deliberate solitude is the conviction that it will help you to love not only God but also other men. Otherwise, if you go into the desert merely to get away from crowds of people you dislike, you will not find peace or solitude either; you will only isolate yourself with a tribe of devils.
“Go into the desert not to escape other men but in order to find them in God.”
Merton, Thomas. Seeds of Contemplation. (NY: Dell, 1949) pages 35-36
true solitude
“There is no true solitude except interior solitude. And interior solitude is not possible for anyone who does not accept his true place in relation to other men. There is no true peace possible for the man who still imagines that some accident of talent or grace or virtue segregates him from other men and places him above them.
“God does not give us graces of talents or virtues for ourselves alone. We are members one of another and everything that is given to one member is given for the whole body.”
Merton, Thomas. Seeds of Contemplation. (NY: Dell, 1949), page 36
the example of Jesus
“Solitude and prayer-time alone were important to Jesus. Why is it, I wonder, that we seem more ready to follow Jesus into service than into solitude? Especially before important decisions were to be made, the Bible shows that Jesus took time to be alone with his Father and to reflect before deciding to move to another locale for ministry, before choosing the disciples, before embracing the cross.” (p. 96)
Sager, Allan H. Gospel Centered Spirituality: An Introduction to our Spiritual Journey. (Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1990) page 96
a Lutheran on silence and solitude
“The mark of solitude is silence, as speech is the mark of community. Silence and speech have the same inner correspondence and difference as do solitude and community. One does not exist without the other. Right speech comes out of silence, and right silence comes out of speech.”
Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. Life Together. San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1954. (original German pub in 1939), page 78.
Pathology: the Study of a Path 