Invitation to Solitude and Silence by Ruth Haley Barton

Author:Ruth Haley Barton [Barton, Ruth Haley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780830875757
Publisher: InterVarsity Press
Published: 2011-01-01T06:00:00+00:00

Our spiritual journey must lead through the desert or else our healing will be the product of our own will and wisdom. It is in the silence of the desert that we hear our dependence on noise. It is in the poverty of the desert that we see clearly our attachments to the trinkets and baubles we cling to for security and pleasure. The desert shatters the soul’s arrogance and leaves body and soul crying out in thirst and hunger. In the desert we trust God or die.

If the truth be told, I could chronicle my entire spiritual journey by tracking my experiences of emptiness and how these experiences — painful as they are — open me the substance of God. One of my earliest experiences with emptiness came as a skinny, awkward teenage girl with glasses and braces, volatile skin, and clothes that had been handed down to me as “the pastor’s kid.” The emptiness and longing I experienced as I watched the “beautiful ones” with their perfect skin and teeth, perky breasts, and cheerleading outfits (symbols of belonging and acceptance) seemed unfathomable. The only thing that even remotely touched this longing was being able to journal my thoughts and prayers and disappointments to God. Maybe I thought if I could name it I could fix it. Maybe writing to Someone gave me a way to live into my belief that God existed in the midst of my emptiness. Or maybe the words on the page helped me to believe I existed even though I was all but invisible to my high school classmates. All I knew then was that, in those moments, turning my whole self to God by journaling helped me.

Now I know that my high school experience of emptiness — and the choice not to numb that emptiness in the ways teenagers often do — forced me to cling to God with the desperation of one hanging over an abyss. It enlarged my capacity for God and enabled me to receive the presence of God. This would have been totally unnecessary if my life had been full of all I thought I wanted.

Of course, my experiences with emptiness did not end there. They continue to this day. As recently as last week I pulled away for a day of solitude on fairly short notice because I was aware of becoming demanding and impatient in a couple of my relationships, my pace of activity was approaching the frenetic level, and I struggled with anxiety and lack of acceptance of the limitations of my life. Something was not quite right. As I approached the hermitage where I would spend this day in solitude, I recognized once again the familiar yawning emptiness and longing underneath the surface of my life. Because I hadn’t opened it to God for a while, I had been trying to assuage the emptiness in all my old ways. It hadn’t yet gotten to the point where it was obvious to the whole world (thank God!), but it was obvious to me and to those closest to me, and I needed to pay attention.

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