Posted on by Kurt Bodling

true self and contemplation

“When we give ourselves to contemplative practices marked by solitude, silence, and stillness, our souls are nurtured, our Virtues blossom, and our True Self comes forward. Contemplative spirituality calms the body, stills the emotions, and quiets the mind. And in so doing, it liberates us from ego addictions, thereby giving us the freedom to make major corrections to our behaviors informed by our True Self.”

Heuertz, Christopher L. The Sacred Enneagram: Finding Your Unique Path to Spiritual Growth. (Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2017), p. 183.

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

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.

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

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.

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

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

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

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.

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Jesus our example

“Christ lived for thirty years in silence. Then, during his public life, he withdrew to the desert to listen to and speak with his Father. The world vitally needs those who go off into the desert. Because God speaks in silence.”

Robert Cardinal Sarah, The Power of Silence Against the Dictatorship of Noise. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2017), page 42

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

inner and outer silence

“Interior silence is the end of judgments, passions, and desires. Once we have acquired interior silence, we can transport it within us into the world and pray everywhere. But just as interior asceticism cannot be obtained without concrete mortifications, it is absurd to speak about interior silence without exterior silence.

“Within silence there is a demand made on each one of us. Man controls his hours of activity if he knows how to enter into silence. The life of silence must be able to precede the active life.”

Robert Cardinal Sarah, The Power of Silence Against the Dictatorship of Noise. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2017), page 32

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

daily silence

“Every day it is important to be silent so as to determine the outlines of one’s future action. The contemplative life is not the only state in which man must make the effort to leave his heart in silence.

“In everyday life, whether secular, civil, or religious, exterior silence is necessary.”

Robert Cardinal Sarah, The Power of Silence Against the Dictatorship of Noise. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2017), page 31