24 hours of silent retreat. . . It was part of my very first weeklong residency for the Renovare Institute, a two-year program in spiritual formation I began this fall. I’d eagerly anticipated the residency for months– a week in Seattle learning from Christian teachers and meeting other nerdy Christian reader people like me–but I wasn’t entirely sure about the silent retreat part. Some of me thought by the time I’d met all those new people and had every meal and session with them for five days that I would be more than ready for 24 hours of silence, and the other part of me suspected my smartphone- and social media-broken brain would explode.
The days passed quickly. Sooner than anticipated, Trevor Hudson was giving us instructions for entering our silent retreat. (If you don’t know Trevor Hudson, RUN, do not walk, to your local library or favorite bookstore and get Discovering Our Spiritual Identity. He is such a gifted and gentle teacher. If he asked me to pack up my wheelie bag and follow him, I would do it.) That afternoon, as we prepared for our silent retreat, I particularly appreciated his admonition to care for ourselves, to rest but also to exercise. He spoke of appreciating the gifts afforded by a retreat: place, space, and time. But what really stayed with me (and still resonates) is a story he told about a silent retreat of his own, guided by a nun who told him after the second day that the first prize in spiritual formation was not insight but encounter.
Encounter, not insight. I reacted so strongly to these three words that I wondered if others could see the light bulb going off over my head. My whole life was words and insight. That was why I read the Bible, why I read books, why I read the news and listened to podcasts.
Insight is very rewarding–it feels great to understand (or to think you understand) what the words in the Bible are saying. Sometimes I feel triumphant, like I cracked a code, and other times I feel a sense of satisfaction and peace after learning something new or reflecting on something old. Yet it is very possible to get stuck in insight and never engage your actual emotions, heart, and soul. To never engage with God.
Encounter is the first prize.
I was very challenged indeed.
I began my silent retreat as I suspect many do, with a nap of several hours. I’m no longer in that stage of motherhood where I was envious of characters in books I read who went to PRISON because I assumed they could at least sleep a lot there, but I always seem to be a little sleep-deprived. In fact, I’m sure everyone else at the residency was slightly annoyed with me because all week I kept exclaiming how without my family and dog and house to look after and feed and clean and drive around I felt so rested, so nourished, so HYDRATED!
After my nap, I went for a walk to a nearby beach. As I walked, I sought encounter by talking to God, mainly about my anxiety and why I can’t seem to be free of it. Well, God did not suddenly appear on the path before me and clearly explain things, other than my thoughts being drawn to Paul’s words from 2 Corinthians 12:9 about God’s power “made perfect in weakness.” I felt more frustrated than delighted with that particular attempt at encounter as I returned to the retreat center and headed into our silent dinner.
Silent communal dinners are not for the faint of heart. I’ve never thought so much about how fast I eat and how loudly I chew as I tried to eat more slowly and not disturb anyone else with the somehow unbelievably obnoxious sound of my chewing. I was relieved to finish my dinner and escape upstairs to my room.
One of my favorite parts of the retreat week was the view from my second-floor window, across the water to a small harbor town on Maury Island. It was especially beautiful at night, when the town’s lights glowed in the darkness. I just stared across the water for what seemed like a very long time. The lights shining from the windows of those houses seemed to me to convey safety. Safe harbor. In my head I heard the words, “You are safe.” I grabbed my journal and wrote over and over again: I am safe. I am safe. I am safe.
It felt like a profound realization. Anxiety is based on fear, on not being safe. Those words felt like a strong repudiation of my fear.
They felt like encounter.
Suddenly, something appeared on the water, a long shape with crazily colored lights. It looked somehow like Eric Carle’s very hungry caterpillar but huge and seaworthy and lighted up. It appeared so strange and whimsical that I stared at it for quite a few seconds before finally clocking it as a barge. I watched, mesmerized, as the caterpillar barge slowly made its way past my window.
I was so taken by these two images that I went downstairs to where some art supplies had been set out for us and immediately tried to recreate the view from my window in watercolor. I tried, anyway. I’m not much of a watercolor artist, but I enjoyed the act of creating.
It felt significant that in this time of silence, God had spoken to me through images rather than words. It seemed like an important reminder to feel as well as to think. To experience as well as reflect. Encounter, not insight.
When our time of silence ended the next day, I felt disappointed. I had enjoyed the silence so much more than I had anticipated.
I think our souls crave silence–I know mine does, and the fact that we experience so little of it causes no small amount of soul sickness. God calls us to meet in the quiet place. God asks us to create the place, space, and time in our everyday lives for encounter. One of the small ways I’m doing that this Advent, on the advice of my spiritual director, is adding a daily alarm to my phone every day at 12 noon that says, “God’s presence.” Some of her directees do that every hour, but I’m not going to win that race so for me once a day when my phone beeps I think about where God is right that moment, around me, in the person or people I’m with, in the trees outside, in the air all around. I think about God in images. It helps.
Tell me: what are you doing to create place, space, and time for God this Advent season?
