“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), p. 78
“It is impossible to enter into the mystery of God without entering into the solitude and silence of our interior desert.” Thought 104.
Sarah, Robert Cardinal with Nicolas Diat. The Power of Silence Against the Dictatorship of Noise. Translated by Michael J. Miller. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2017) p. 65.
“Camaldolese life, then, blends solitude and communion. It is not always an easy blending. A monk in the early period of his formation was talking recently about the seemingly contradictory demands of a life that calls for radical solitude and deep communion. He said it was impossible. Left to ourselves, we would have to agree. For it is only with God’s call and grace that we can attempt to live out this mysterious life.”
Healey, Bede. “Psychological Investigations and Implications for Living Together Alone.” in Belisle, Peter-Damian, editor. The Privilege of Love: Camaldolese Benedictine Spirituality. (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 2002), p. 115.
“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.”
Barton, Ruth Haley. Invitation to Solitude and Silence: Experiencing God’s Transforming Presence. (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 2004), p. 118.
“Today when I talk about contemplative spirituality, I’m referring to a faith rooted in practices marked by postures of solitude, silence, and stillness, which may seem similar yet are distinct ways of encountering God with our whole presence and person. Solitude, silence, and stillness are the lifesaving corrections to the absurdity we’ve fallen into–the addictions or whatever is out of control in our lives.”
Heuertz, Christopher L. The Sacred Enneagram: Finding Your Unique Path to Spiritual Growth. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2017), pp. 170-171.
“To love solitude and to seek it does not mean constantly traveling from one geographical possibility to another. A man becomes a solitary at the moment when, no matter what may be his external surroundings, he is suddenly aware of his own inalienable solitude and sees that he will never be anything but solitary. From that moment, solitude is not potential–it is actual.”
Merton, Thomas. Thoughts in Solitude. (NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux. 1958. (pbk ed 1999)), p. 77
“Each by itself has profound pitfalls and perils. One who wants fellowship without solitude plunges into the void of words and feelings, and one who seeks solitude without fellowship perishes in the abyss of vanity, self-infatuation, and despair. Let him who cannot be alone beware of community. Let him who is not in community beware of being alone.”
Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. Life Together. (San Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 1954), p. 78.
“We think of our attachments as anchors of well-being. We feel good when we are surrounded by what seem like innocent indulgences and think they secure a state of pleasure that would not be ours without them. In reality, however, they sabotage our happiness and are hazardous to both our spiritual health and our psychological health.
“Attachments undermine our freedom, making our contentment and joy dependent on their presence. …
“Spiritually, attachments serve as idols: we invest in objects and experiences that should be invested only in God. Anything that is grasped is afforded value beyond actual worth, value that is ultimately stolen from God.
“Ultimately, attachments are ways of coping with the feelings of vulnerability, shame and inadequacy that lie at the core of our false ways of being.”
Benner, David G. The Gift of Being Yourself. Expanded ed. (Downers Grove, Ill: IVP Books, 2015), page 75.
“Far from ruining the purity of solitary prayer, petition guards and preserves that purity. The solitary, more than anyone else, is always aware of his poverty and of his needs before God. Since he depends directly on God for everything material and spiritual, he has to ask for everything. His prayer is an expression of his poverty. Petition, for him, can hardly become a mere formality, a concession to human custom, as if he did not need God in everything.”
Merton, Thomas. Thoughts in Solitude. (NY: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1958), page 105.
“Play, for [psychotherapist] Winnicott, is a medium for the expression and elaboration of the true self–it is progressive, creative and developmental. Play can be the ‘work’ of psychotherapy. I believe it is also applicable to the ‘work’ of growing in interiority that is the task of contemplative monastics. We are at play with God when we are about the work of transformation. When we meditate or pray, for example, we are entering an area of potential space, transitional space. In this generative space created between God and us, we encounter God and God encounters us. We are no longer completely inside or outside ourselves, but in this space co-created by God and ourselves, a place to play, where we can be our truest self and pray.
“This potential space is not concrete, so it would be a misapplication to apply it to the cell, for example. We may indeed be able to co-create this space in our cell, and it may be a place of profound prayer. But this ground of encounter with God cannot be limited to a concrete place. It is, in fact, something that is part of our heart, here defined from a biblical and early Christian perspective. We take our heart with us wherever we go. In many ways the process of growing in interiority can be considered ‘heartwork’ that takes place i[n] solitude and in community. The potentiality of potential space means it can be co-created anywhere.”
Healey, Bede. “Psychological Investigations and Implications for Living Together Alone.” in Belisle, Peter-Damian, editor. The Privilege of Love: Camaldolese Benedictine Spirituality. (Collegeville, Minn.: Liturgical Press, 2002), page 126.
Pathology: the Study of a Path 