Celebration of Discipline #1

Many topics are covered by Richard Foster in his book Celebration of Discipline on spiritual growth. One that I took specific note of was a chapter on "The Discipline of Solitude." Solitude and aloneness in general is something that I am interested in studying because it's often something I reject in my own life. Although I greatly enjoy hiking and being outdoors, I often wish when I am alone that I had someone to share the experience with. Sometimes I find myself already formulating the story that I will tell my friends once I get back to them instead of fully enjoying what's right in front of me.

Foster writes that "Without silence there is no solitude. Though silence sometimes involves the absence of speech, it always involves the act of listening" (98). Silence is another thing I often struggle with, because I often get anxious that I am wasting my time. I love to listen to audiobooks and podcasts while I am traveling or doing some menial task, because it allows me to discover and learn new things while I would otherwise be occupied. If I am driving without any music or discussion going on at all, things feel quite odd to me. I have noticed, though, that even though I avoid silence I do have some of my best opportunities to think when they are forced upon me. In a wilderness setting, it is easier to rationalize being in silence because it seems wrong to disrespect the sights and sounds nature is giving you by adding your own soundtrack over it. In regular society, we see that everything has been constructed around us, and that also instructs us to engineer what we want to be hearing.

To suggest when to go about seeking silence, Foster suggests "slip outside just before bed and taste the silent night. These tiny snatches of time are often lost to us ... they are times for inner quiet, for reorienting our lives like a compass needle" (106). It was with this idea that I connected the dislike for solitude with the dislike for silence. We determined in class that being in the wilderness is a liminal experience, which allows us to reorder our priorities and discover what controls us. Silence, in a similar way, allows us to have thoughts and experience things that we would have otherwise covered up with incessant noise, sometimes just for the sake of having something to listen to. I think this process, while helpful, is often initially unwanted. If we have a chance between taking time to be silent and seeing our friends, we (or I, at least) usually choose the latter until I am so fed up with society that I need silence. I think a good goal would be to equalize these times in life and choose true silence just as often through enjoyable activities like hiking.