What I Learned From 3 Days Of Solitude

Alright kids, I’m back from my 3 days of hermitude. I went up to Moscow mountain to a cabin Friday afternoon and came back today (Monday). So I had about three days of solitude. I’ve never been devoid of all human contact for so long… and I don’t know many people who have been so long without human interaction in their life either. I wrote out a few things I learned from my retreat which I think it appropriate to share here.

I learned that external silence does not equal internal silence, and it takes much effort, even in external silence to achieve internal silence.

I learned that having a clock and rationing time can be a very healthy thing, if I want to be productive (in reading and prayer anyways). Having no time is also a very healthy experience in a different way. It taught me just how very reliant I am upon the system of hours and minutes we use. To enjoy someone’s company, be it God’s or man’s, one should cast aside time in this respect. Time is helpful for productivity, but not for the enjoyment of company.

I witnessed the utter beaut and diversity of God’s creation. I realized that beauty in creation should be enjoyed–perhaps *can* be enjoyed is better–for its own sake, not for abstract allegorical reasons. When I try to find attributes of God in his creation it detracts from my enjoyment. The experience of beauty is the experience of truth, and when we experience beauty for beauty’s sake, we are enjoying God and his creation, and is not this in itself a sort of mystical aesthetic revelation?

I learned that cultivating a quiet listening and waiting upon God in the heart is a hard thing that takes much practice.

I learned to look back in life and see how God has answered my requests and prayers. And I realized that God does indeed answer my prayers–every one I can remember or have written down–even though it might take time and be a little different than I might think; still he very clearly answers my requests for good things.

I learned that living in quiet and fasting from food and smoking and life affects my spiritual state. Even though I might not feel different during the retreat or fasting or when it’s done, still I see hints of subtle grace in my interactions and quietness after the fact that linger. I am slightly more quiet and thoughtful, and love flows just a little more freely out of me. The change is not grand and big and supervisible, but slight quiet, subtle. It is here, though small.

I also learned to appreciate those things I did not have, and then to see them as gifts from God to be enjoyed in their fullest and most beautiful potential. For what is food, what are people and clocks and books and social interaction and tobacco but good and holy gifts to be enjoyed as precious and costly pleasures bestowed upon us?

I learned that the toil of our hands and minds is a thing to be enjoyed, a gift. Idleness is not a healthy thing, but to work in all quietness and godliness is true righteousness: to build things, to write tings, to chop things, and to work with the earth: these are all labors to be enjoyed from God’s good providence.