So often we try to convey or communicate the character and work of God to others by stepping up the noise and the activity; and yet for God to communicate who and what God is, God needs our silence.
We need persuaders and prophets raising their voices and pricking our consciences and pointing the way.
And yet we need something else, too. God calls for our attention, and one way to give it is through silence.
Rowan Williams is right to observe that Christians frequently work very hard to proclaim the message and move the masses, to persuade and preach the gospel, to call people toward repentance and the good deeds that accompany it.
He is also right to remind us that if we are to truly encounter God, if we are to learn who and what God is, we need to stop, silence our mouths, still our souls, rest, and pay attention. We need to turn toward God so that we can be transformed by God.
I think one way to avoid God’s communication is to fill our lives with noise. This is true in both the secular and religious realms. I think a major source of our modern spiritual poverty is due to the lack of quiet spaces, places, and people. I don’t know if God “needs” our silence. I do think God invites us into silence, because we need God. Silence is the means to the encounter. The end is God.
In silence we discover our need of God. In silence we discover we have needs only God can address, murmuring underneath the surface, distorting our vision, disrupting our peace, dividing our communities, diminishing our souls–though treatable with divine aid. In silence we attend to God, and God attends to us. We encounter God as God is. And we encounter ourselves. God helps us see what we’d otherwise miss or deny. False ideas of God are exposed, and true knowledge of God is revealed.
In silence we communicate with God. More importantly, God communicates with us. There is time for preaching and for action, and there is much work to be done. God sends us out. But we must not neglect silence. We must not neglect the invitation to be still. God gathers us in. We enter God’s presence. We quiet our souls. We receive. We are restored. We are renewed.
When God sends us out again, we’re better messengers, servants, and ambassadors. We’re better equipped to glorify God, because in silence, we have beheld God’s glory.
I work on a university campus. It is a beautiful place. I’m thankful for the opportunities to leave my office, walk the grounds, and be surrounded by beauty. There are green spaces and trees, fountains and memorials, the sound of bells chiming the hour, birds, squirrels, cultivated gardens. I also have memories. I completed my undergraduate degree here. My parents and other members of my extended family attended this school. I have a connection to the history. I enjoy my time on campus.
One of the things I notice when I walk the campus is the number of people, mainly students, who walk with their cell phone in hand. If they are not walking, they are standing. When a line forms at the entrance to a cafeteria, for example, most people are gazing at their smartphone. I see far more people with a smartphone in their hand than I see walking with others, talking, or just walking by themselves, hands free and eyes forward.
The smartphone keeps many people captive to digital distraction, whether it be through social media, streaming video, or text communication. I see headphones and earbuds, too, which allow people to consume music, podcasts, audio books, and the like while on the go.
This isn’t all bad. But I do wonder what it is doing to our capacity to think deeply and experience our world more fully, to be present to the creation, to God, others, and ourselves. I’m concerned. I’m concerned for what it might mean for the soul.
It is very difficult to stop any habit through white knuckling, bearing down and trying to quit by sheer force of will. Even if you wanted to stop looking at your phone, once you are habituated to it, it’s tough to break away.
It is easier to change if you understand habit loops, which move from cue to routine to reward, and make a change that brings you to a more desirable outcome. The cues will keep coming. When you notice the cue, you change the routine. The reward, or outcome, is then something better than what you would have received by following the old routine.
We reach for our smartphones because our brains are looking for something to do. We get bored. That feeling of boredom, that restlessness, is our cue. Notifications and feeds alleviate our boredom through a steady stream of stimulation. Scrolling and checking becomes our routine. When there is something new, we have a reward. Even when there is not something new, we have the reward of knowing we have not “missed” anything. It’s a shallow reward, a fleeting reward, but it is a reward nonetheless.
Alternatives to Distraction: Christian Spiritual Disciplines
What could be more meaningful?
Is there a better reward on offer, one that could be received through a new routine, leading to a richer and fuller experience of life?
I work at a Christian university. I think the Christian faith offers wisdom that can help us avoid distraction and grow in our relationship with God. How is that wisdom received? From God, through the Christian spiritual disciplines.
The Christian spiritual disciplines offer several alternatives to digital distraction. Rather than stare at a smart phone, here are five Christian spiritual disciplines you can try to better connect with God, others, and what is taking place within your soul.
1. Contemplation
The Christian discipline of contemplation helps us to wake up to the presence of God in all things, and can be done by practicing God’s presence. We seek to truly see and gaze on life as it is experienced, leading us to be more sensitive to God’s revelation. We are also actively led to resist our compulsion to know and do everything, instead resting content as God’s beloved. This discipline can be entered through simple prayer. Instead of gazing down at a smartphone, leave it in your pocket. Place your hands together in a the traditional posture of prayer. Hold your eyes level and say, “God, help me be attentive to all things, and to you.”
2. Retreat
The Christian discipline of retreat involves both short and extended periods of time for quiet companionship with and listening to God. A university campus is a place of study and activity. It is also a place with spaces to sit, listen, watch, and rest. After disengaging with a class and its content, find a moment to be still, with the phone away. Ask God to be with you in your thoughts. Notice your feelings. Jot down your insights. Receive grace. Rest in God.
3. Unplugging
The Christian discipline of unplugging is less known. It meets a modern challenge. If you have trouble looking at your phone, turn it off. Stow it in a backpack, rather than in your pocket. If you have a ten minute walk from class to your apartment, use this time to be fully present to God and those around you. Smile at those you see. Say hello to those you know. Notice your surroundings. It will feel uncomfortable, at first. When you power your phone back on, you can respond to any calls or text messages you may have missed. And maybe you’ll do so a little differently, because you have spent a few minutes being attentive to God.
4. Mindfulness/Attentiveness
The Christian discipline of mindfulness or attentivenessgrounds us firmly in the present moment. When practicing this discipline we are fully alert to God. We pay attention to what we’re thinking, feeling, and experiencing, and consider these thoughts, emotions, and experiences with God. We breath more deeply. We turn over our worries and anxieties. We savor God’s gifts. You may have heard of this discipline, though not as a Christian practice. What’s the Christian difference? We do it with the Triune God as our focus and end.
5. Silence
The Christian discipline of silence is not only about refraining from speaking. It is a way of actively engaging with God by forsaking noise and distraction. Adele Calhoun writes, “Silence is a regenerative practice of attending to and listening to God in quiet, without interruption and noise. Silence provides freedom from speaking as well as from listening to words or music. (Reading is also listening to words.)” Silence is received. We enter silence. We actively open our ears, eyes, hearts, and minds to God. We wait. Our smartphones keep us from entering silence. Rather than scrolling, choose silence.
I could have named the discipline of walking without your phone or the discipline of walking without earbuds. The spiritual disciplines involve disengagement and engagement. It isn’t enough to stop looking at our smartphones. That’s a great beginning. But we’re called to shift our gaze elsewhere, paying attention to God and the ways God is present and active in and around us.
This list is just a beginning. What other Christian spiritual disciplines could be used to combat digital distraction? What could result?
Alpha and Omega, Gentle Lion and Conquering Lamb, Forgiver of our debts and Defeater of the evil powers in all times and all places:
We worship you and give you thanks, for yours is all blessing and honor and glory and might.
You are the strong God who became weak, so that we, who are weak, in placing our trust in you, might be made strong. In Jesus, we have cruciform victory.
Let us walk today in full freedom. Freedom from sin and the powers that seek to enslave us. Freedom to do your will. Freedom to tell the truth. Freedom to do what is just and right. Freedom to boldly share the gospel. Freedom to walk with you, as your beloved children.
We are free, because of the cross of Jesus.
Send us forth from this place filled with the Holy Spirit, rejoicing gladly.
Let us not be discouraged when we suffer, when we endure hardship, when we feel broken and defeated, for the victory is yours, and you have secured for us an inheritance that will never pass away, a place in your kingdom, and forever friendship with you.
You walk with us as we trod the path appointed for us.
In a class a few weeks ago we took a few moments to practice creative prayer. Our group was guided by the work of Sybil MacBeth. You can read about MacBeth and her approach here.
Whenever we teach this approach to prayer I spend the remainder of our time together doodling, coloring, and recording the images, names, Scripture fragments, and ideas that to my mind while listening to the lecture and surrounding conversation. I had a pen and two colored pencils, green and brown. I wrote down the names of family members I hold dear and thought of their circumstances. I wrote down desires of God that I want to be my desires, for peace, justice, and righteousness. I just noticed that I used line to direct the gaze up and to push myself toward a deeper faith. There is an upward climb from left to a right, and a tree providing much shade. I gave thanks for a recent rain. Concentric circles cause me to pause and draw me inward. I asked God to combat a virus I’ve been at war with.
If you ever get stuck in prayer, if you ever feel you cannot string your thoughts together linearly, pull out a pen, a piece of paper, and a couple of markers or crayons, and linger a while with God.
Human life requires God. The theologian offers his or her mind in the service of saying “God” in such a way that God is not reduced or packaged or banalized, but known and contemplated and adored, with the consequence that our lives are not cramped into what we can explain but exalted by what we worship.
I believe God is personal. I also believe God is wonderful, glorious, the most splendid being in all of existence. I believe this God has made himself known, and can be known.
But it is possible to talk about God in such a way that is impersonal. We are capable of god-talk that is informative but uninteresting, accurate but unmoving, static rather than dynamic, cold rather than radiant, dead rather than alive.
I once heard a person described as a good theologian who didn’t care much for God. I think this is possible, albeit tragic. If human life requires God, as Peterson claims, we need more than knowledge about God, we need intimacy with God. The theologian can serve us by helping us gain a greater understanding of God. This is a worthwhile beginning.
But the best theologians, I think, present God to us with the voice not only of a priest or a prophet, but a poet, someone who can help us through language behold the God who has been revealed as the Word of Life (1 John 1:1-3), a God that can be seen and felt and touched, a God who has drawn near to us in Christ Jesus, a God through whom we not only are invited to elevate our thoughts concerning, but a God who has extended to us the gift of fellowship, of eternal communion, now and always.
In his Spiritual Letters, Abbot John Chapman offers this counsel regarding the practice of prayer, away from efforts that are strenuous and exhausting, and toward an experience of prayer that is contemplative, restful, and peaceful.
What does Chapman think is the right way to approach a contemplative experience of prayer?
I think the right way is (1) indirect and (2) negative.
(1) Indirect. Practice prayer, as much as possible, in the quiet way of contemplation: the effect follows of itself, out of prayer.
(2) Negative. Avoid distractions, as far as possible. Cultivate the habit of getting a few instants or a few minutes of peace as often as possible. It is like opening a window to let peace flow in: or, still more, like shutting a door to keep noise out. But you can’t make silence. You can make a noise. But you can only “make” silence by stopping the noise, or stopping your ears. Hence the way to get that “recollection,” which is simply interior peace, is not by any positive effort, but only negative effort;–that is, the cessation of acting or thinking.
Consequently, it ought always to be a relaxation, not an effort. Consequently, it ought never to cause fatigue, or overstrain, or headache.
I think all this is true, and I hope it is clear. Beginners have to meditate, work, tire themselves. But contemplation is rest, peace and refreshment; and its effect is extraordinarily strengthening. Just as the body is after sleep, so the will is after prayer.
The bold emphasis is mine. I say it this way: You can’t make silence. You can only enter it, or receive it. The silence is there waiting for us to cease our noise making and to quiet ourselves. It is something to rest in. When entered, we are invited to notice God, to pay attention, to listen, to “be still” and know that God is God (Psalm 46:10). And if we know God as God is revealed in Jesus Christ, resting in him is an experience of true sabbath (Hebrews 4:1-13).
Silence, received as gift, can be given. How? By keeping it, by refraining from making a noise. Silence, then, can also be shared, and in sharing, there can be another gift: presence. We can be present to ourselves, to the other, and to God.
Chapman writes, “contemplation is rest, peace and refreshment; and its effect is extraordinarily strengthening. Just as the body is after sleep, so the will is after prayer.”
How does silent, contemplative prayer strengthen and refresh us, reinforcing the will? By reminding us of God’s character, beauty, and grace, and by alerting us to our weakness, infirmity, and humble position. We consider anew the grandeur of who we serve, and renew our commitment to glorify God. We also contemplate our lowly estate and need for divine help. The needy ask for help; God will supply it (Psalm 72:12). We are thereby emboldened and humbled, simultaneously, by silently attending to God.
Pray as you can, and do not try to pray as you can’t.
Take yourself as you find yourself, and start from that.
Remember, God sees your desire to pray. And where do you think that desire comes from?
Simple prayers, earnestly spoken, are a wonderful way to begin. And I’m encouraged to know that when I am without words, the Spirit intercedes for me (Romans 8:26-27).
Accept where you are, trust what you have, begin where you can, be grateful for what you have (the Psalms, the Lord’s Prayer, collects and good liturgy, memorized, reliable words given to you by other Christian people), notice your longing for God, and patiently wait on the Lord.
Paul will not permit us to compensate for neglecting those nearest us by advertising our compassion for those on another continent. Jesus, it must be remembered, restricted nine-tenths of his ministry to twelve Jews because it was the only way to redeem all Americans. He couldn’t be bothered, said Martin Thornton, with the foreign Canaanites because his work was to save the whole world. The check for the starving child must still be written and the missionary sent, but as an extension of what we are doing at home, not as an exemption from it.
For those in Christ, our loving concern is to be extended to every human being, reaching as far as those whom we are furthest from. But it must not bypass those nearest to us. It must encompass and encounter those in our orbit. It must be given to those we look upon every day, particulary our family, and even our enemies, of whom it has been said are often one and the same. Love begins in the neighborhood, and for householders, in the home.
This is a grand mystery. We are commanded to love. We are commanded to love those in the household of faith. We are commanded to demonstrate love for the world in the same manner Jesus demonstrated his love for us. We are to act in loving concern for those who are suffering, those who are downtrodden, wherever they may be found. We are called to go to the nations. We are sent into the world. We often miss the opportunities that are right in front of our faces, foregoing faithful, straightforward obedience in our immediate circumstances for the pursuit of some grand purpose or glorious cause.
This observation is not meant to condemn. Rather, it is intended to invite reflection and discernment. I have long puzzled over the Christian compulsion to pursue grand ambitions in faraway places to the neglect of fellow citizens sharing the same city or state. And yet, some of these grand efforts have acheived great good, leading to transformation and faith. Work has been done in the name of Christ. Nevertheless, it seems we choose to go around people in order to get to other people whom we believe really need the love of Christ, rather than tending first to the needs of those where we are.
Above, Eugene Peterson resolves the tension by reminding us that ultimately the command to love is fulfilled by way of a both/and rather than an either/or, and that the calling to love in the Christian life is one of integrity. If we extend love to those far away, we had better be faithfullly loving those right here.
I confess I am not as successful in keeping the command to love as well as I would hope. It is not an easy command to keep. In order to demonstrate love for humanity, the Son of God crossed the veil separating heaven from earth. He put off divinity and put on flesh. He left a throne for a manger. He set aside the privileges of deity for poverty. He left the security and stability of God’s throneroom and became a refugee. The Ancient of Days became a baby. He left the position of Creator and took a job as a carpenter. He left home in the Galilean countryside and instead became one who had no place to lay his head. The one who came to us as life and light was plunged into death and darkness. He was propelled to obedience through love, a love for the Father, and a love for us. Jesus put aside a lot, for love.
When I see a love like that, I find a reservoir from which I can draw which is not only a well, but a river of life, which Jesus said springs up in those who embrace him and enter his kingdom. As an eternal spring, its supply is ample for those who are near and for those who are far, both. We cannot exhaust it. It is the love of God.
Personally, at the beginning of my day–often before arising–I commit my day to the Lord’s care. Usually I do this while meditatively praying through the Lord’s Prayer, and possibly the twenty-third Psalm as well. Then I meet everything that happens as sent or at least permitted by God. I meet it resting in the hands of his care. This helps me to “do all things without grumbling or disputing” (Philippians 2:14), because I have already “placed God in charge” and am trusting him to manage them for my good. I no longer have to manage the weather, planes, and other people.
There are many avenues by which we may choose to walk with God through life. Signposts, however, do help. Dallas Willard reported beginning each day with the discipline of committing all that would unfold “to the Lord’s care.” There is a natural connection to the Lord’s Prayer and Psalm 23. Both of those prayers declare that God is in charge and that provision and protection are available in God’s kingdom. Willard would mediate, or set his thoughts upon, these passages from Scripture, reminding himself God was worthy of trust and God’s power was available to those who call upon him.
Techniques do not bring us closer to God, but the testimonies of those who have gone before us can be suggestive for how we, too, might walk as companions of Christ. It is God’s grace that makes us holy.
The spiritual disciples are wise ways of seeking God, gifts from God that help us in the seeking. They have proven profitable for others who have longed to know God more fully; God continues to meet people through them. To take up a discipline is an act of faith. The discipline of turning the day over to God, acknowledging human limitations and declaring our trust anew, refocuses our vision, humbles our hearts, and heightens our awareness of the subtleties and, on occasion, the thunderclaps of God’s action. Remember, God raised a man from the dead (among other miracles), and some missed it. Turning the day over to God also allows us to relax. We don’t have to make it happen. God is at work.
A Christian spiritual practice like Willard describes would only take moments to complete each day. But it would make a difference, not only for one day, but maybe for a life.
What commitments do you keep? What actions do you take? How do you seek God routinely each day?
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