Solitude, silence and stillness

One of the positive consequences of this challenging pandemic, it seems to me, has been that people have more time to be still, to take a step back and reassess their lives. I have heard people talking about using their free time to do things they have always wanted to do but never had the time, such as learning the guitar or painting.

Such a change of perspective, I think, comes from solitude.

I am reminded of when I worked at the Iona Abbey on the Isle of Iona. Although life there was busy, especially in the summer season, when hundreds of people would visit daily, I often met guests who had come to get some silence. Many of them had recently experienced a life-changing event, such as a bereavement or a transition of some kind, perhaps graduation or being made redundant. They came to Iona for healing and clarity regarding their next steps.

Hermit's Cell

Away from the village and abbey, the small island (three miles in length and one mile in width) did provide solitude. One place where people have found stillness is the Hermit's Cell, a ring of large stones tucked in the shadow of a cliff, the remnants of a structure that may have been used by monks seeking solitude from activity at the monastery.

On the Iona Community's pilgrimage around the island, pilgrims sit there quietly for a few minutes, enjoying the presence of God apart from buzzing cell phones, the glare of computer screens and the rush of daily demands.

The challenge, of course, is practising such solitude when the pilgrimage is over.

Volunteers on Iona do not have WiFi access in their living quarters; there is only a small library in a loft above the abbey refectory where they can use the Internet. This is intentional, an effort to encourage people to interact with each other face to face.

When I was a "vollie," I remember speaking with a fellow staff member about how refreshing it was to be free of social media. He said that when he lived at home, he could spend hours scrolling on his Facebook page seeing what his friends were doing, but on Iona, he hardly ever checked his Facebook. I could relate to him. Yet I found that when I left Iona, I eventually went back to my old habits of wasting time on the computer.

This search for solitude and silence was the impulse behind the first monks and nuns, who journeyed (and still journey) into the solitude and silence of the desert like Jesus did to fast, pray and wrestle against evil, and through their struggle, attain communion with Christ.

This was also the impulse behind the founding of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). Led by George Fox in the mid-1600s, they sought to worship Christ free from outward forms of worship, which they saw as distractions. Thus their 'open worship' is largely silent, except for when one is moved by God to speak a word to the community. In this context their goal is also communion with Christ.

A quiet garden

Our Lord himself sought solitude, silence and stillness regularly. The Gospel of Mark tells of how, after an intense evening of healing many people and casting out demons, 'very early [the next] morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed' (1:35).

During this time of enforced solitude I ask myself, how can I seek silence and stillness to commune with Christ?