Moving from Being Alone to Being With

How a Silent Retreat works and does not work for us

Photo by Kristina Flour on Unsplash

Last week, I took time to go on a silent retreat. I went to a retreat center nestled in the Blue Ridge Mountains, called Valle Crucis—which means “valley of the crosses”. I was taken with the notion that this silent retreat would be at the crux of where three mountain creeks forged together in the shape of a cross. People have been going there for over a hundred years because of the serene setting, lush valley floor of fauna and surrounded by rugged, and old mountains. I would not be the first and I will not be the last to go here for solitude.

I stayed in a “hermitage”—a word in Russian spirituality for “little cabin in the woods”—and it exceeded my expectations for a time to be quiet; to be alone and move from my own aloneness into a space of solitude. The journey from being “alone” to being “with” is sometimes, a long arduous one. Solitude, when correctly understood is not being alone. It is being with—being with God and with one’s own self.

I arrived with a cluttered heart and busy mind. These two obstacles impede a sojourners desire and many abandon their intent and efforts by being alone rather than moving through and onward to being “with” God and with oneself. I needed to de-clutter. I needed to have a garage sale of all my mental activities of fundraising for my sister and brother in law who is living with a terminal diagnosis. I had things I felt I wanted to write about—things I felt I needed to say. So many inner agendas. It was loud inside my soul.

As moderns, we know little of this inner shift. As you read classical spiritual writings, however, we find this path well trodden and a few have helped us discover the “with” and to settle there,for an extended time. I’ve been aided here, not by Protestant writers but by Catholics authors—all of which are no longer living. Now, in a day and age where loneliness is our new epidemic, we need guidance to find our way through the wall that separates being “alone” to being “with.” Many us sit down at the wall and actually do not know how to move through the wall to create space for ourselves and space for God.

I know it must seem so odd to read my words here regarding this. But a silent retreat, if it is a silent retreat, is tracing the movement from inner “aloneness” to inner “withness”. It does feel like I’m writing in a foreign language like Chinese or Japanese to say such things. But actually, the language of the soul is foreign to many of us. It’s foreign because in all our education, we have been taught and instructed and taken in so much information. Yet, little is known of soul talk.

God’s first language is silence. That’s why the early monastics told us and I believe it is true.

Silence is soul talk. It is listening. It is more listening and it is deeper listening.

The Jewish poet wrote:

Be Still and Know that I am God.—Psalm 46:10

And this is the key to unlock this closed door and thick wall. We must approach God in our stillness—not in our activity. Knowing comes through stillness. Knowing comes from stilling our hearts to listen and to be with God in mystery.

Let me break it down this way:

Be Still and Know that I am God.

Be Still and Know.

Be Still.

Be.

Those four lines, mark the journey of becoming still. It does not happen because you show up and unpack a suitcase and turn the kettle on for some tea.

Photo by Andrew Bui on Unsplash

Our souls are like a muddy jar of water—all mixed up; all stirred up with paying our bills, managing our emails; making appointments and having meetings. We are muddy and our inner world is full of storm clouds, if the truth is known. We need time and there is no substitute for time in our need to be still and to be with rather than feeling lonely.

It was a good day for me when I discovered that the word “alone” is made up of two words: “all” and “one.” The movement into being one with God and one with own’s self is the journey of becoming more and more comfortable with silence. I think the crazier and busier the world gets—and louder too—the more we will crave silence and have to have silence to move from suriving to thriving.

Imagine you’re doing a retreat. Getting settled and arrived and ready to hear from God. That’s all fine. That’s all good. But what is needed is some slowing. What the soul needs is to move away from what we call “chronos” time—that time we mark in minutes, days and weeks to “kairos” time—that time marked by epiphanies, transfigurations and mystery. Kairos time are times in the Scriptures marked by clouds, fires and darkness. We are all so shaped and molded by chronos—so many things to do; so many tasks and the tyranny of the urgent. All of these voices drown out our initial hope at getting still and being quiet.

When there’s too much chronos, there is too little kairos.

We have to clear our schedule, our calendars and our minds and hearts is we are to move from being alone to being with God.

As I settled into my little hermitage equipped with one bed, two chairs, one table and one desk, and a very small working kitchen, I turned off all the lights and went outside and sat in a rocking chair staring into the night sky. I spotted the Little Dipper and that became a sort of working metaphor for me for my silent retreat. The Little Dipper is marked by several stars including the North Star to make a little ladle in the sky. Gwen and I have been watching the Little Dipper all winter move across the sky at our home in Brevard, NC. It’s been a nightly topic for us to go outside together and find it. So, I was already well versed in watching this amazing night show.

But here at the retreat, I imagined that ladle scooping down inside of me as I sat there and being pulled up through my whole being. I imagined what would be in that ladle as it came up out of me. That was my beginning. My imagination converging with a starry constellation and it’s what I needed to start working through my crowded and very full mind and soul. Somethings would need to come out—before Other things could find their way in. There’s a word for this movement and it is the word “purgation.” It’s a word that means, to purge away…a movement needed to let go before you take hold of something or Someone else. The Little Dipper worked just fine for me.

In my poetry that I’m sharing with you on Substack, I always watch the comments and “likes”. It’s a way of me seeing for myself if I came close to the bullseye in saying with words what the target of my heart is looking at. I am still surprised that so far, there are no comments on my poem. It could be because I put it in the article on Lent and the poem really has nothing to do with Lent in one way. But that morning, when I hit publish, I felt my poem was a Lenten poem.

So today, I’m going to publish the same poem again. And this time, I’ll make the poem available for everyone to see. I’m interested now, to see if the poem gets a bit more traction because I set it up differently in prose before I shared the poem. The good thing about Substack is that I see this all as experimentation. I’m experimenting with my writing. I’m sharing my poetry. I’m sharing how to set a poem up—if a poem needs to be set up. I’m learning alot on the Substack journey and you’re helping me with your comments, shares and support.

Here’s my poem for everyone to read. I’d love it if you’d write a line that seemed to stick out to you. That way, we can watch, learn and explore this together.

For me, the whole poem resolves in the very last line: “Sweet clear broth of goodness now.” That line is what happened on my silent retreat. After some clearing out of my inside world…after some time of becoming still by the night lights of the Milky Way, I sensed within me the “sweet broth” of being with God—not just alone. It was good. It was very good. It was a good I needed and wanted.

Here’s a link to a beautiful book that I wrote with my dear friend Peter Ivey on how to do a silent retreat. It’s a short and concise guide to how to go Solo and Create Space. It’s a great resource and I’m very proud of this work and the traction it is getting around the world. In the book is a tool on how to explore the “State of your Soul.”

Little Dipper

by Stephen W. Smith

I cannot find the words.
I cannot find the ladle to bring anything up.
Is it that I am frozen inside?
Is it that I am numb?

Clutter. Stuff. Accumulation.
Too much packed in too tightly.
So much news and too much noise.
Competing opportunities are colliding.

Here in these woods, I have come.
Now, in this dark, I can see.
Night time stars show a faint way. 
Little Dipper, keep on dredging my soul.

What is this rising up in me?
This desire is in that ladle now.
A yearning for love—for presence.
Sweet, clear broth of goodness now.