The Bonds of Silence
Robert Hart on Finding Friends While Alone with God
An hour or so from moist and chilly Berkeley, our cars, filled to capacity with fugitives from secular turmoil, with luggage and sacramental appointments, traveled into the Napa Valley, amid mountains standing guard over the vineyards. Pine forests grow up the sides all the way to the top, and clouds envelop the tallest of these, as if lending modesty to the peaks.
Our small caravan of priests, deacons, and seminarians had already begun to create that informal fellowship best expressed with the good humor of jokes, the wittier the better. (Humor and meaningful conversation, rather than “male bonding,” makes friends of men.)
Our cars drove uphill along the thin road that serves as an entrance to the Carmelite monastery. We were greeted inside the large main house by an elderly Irish monk. After being signed in, we were taken to our rooms and left to prepare. In the early evening, in our cassocks, we made our way to a beautiful chapel, where we sang Evening Prayer and heard the first of several talks, meditations on the Desert Fathers.
We sat across from each other in two “choirs,” with the sound of the prayers, mostly the chanting of the old Prayer Book Psalter, echoing off the stone. High above us, near the ceiling, were great windows admitting the dying light of the ending day. Over the marble altar was a very stark crucifix, the Son of Man in his agonies looking down at us.
God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us (Romans 5:8).
Together Alone
This was the beginning of the silence, silence broken only by the offices of prayer, the daily Mass, and the reading out loud, in turn one by one, of The Screwtape Letters during each meal. Otherwise, only a private confession would serve as a reason to speak. As the leader of our retreat pointed out, the purpose in coming together was to be alone. The shared solitude is itself a very old tradition, giving us time for prayer and meditation unlike the kind we attempt regularly during our busy lives in the world.
And the apostles gathered themselves together unto Jesus, and told him all things, both what they had done, and what they had taught. And he said unto them, Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place, and rest a while (Mark 6:30–31).
The silence itself teaches and refreshes. Without words, without the need to speak—without the social pressure to direct our gaze constantly on what others place before us—we find freedom. In the silence we discover that we are resting not only from the cares, the business, and the turmoil of the world. We rest as well from the amusements and entertainments, learning only in this way that these things, too, are a burden.
They, creating their own demands upon our time, shut out prayer as much as do the cares and anxieties of life. It is only in this silence, silence that is directed towards God, in solitude that is protected by a community in which to be alone, that we finally see what a burden those entertaining forms of relaxation can be, what labor in themselves. But, for now, we lay that labor down and discover peace, blessed relief, in so doing.
Robert Hart is rector of St. Benedict's Anglican Catholic Church in Chapel Hill, North Carolina (Anglican Catholic Church Original Province). He also contributes regularly to the blog The Continuum. He is a contributing editor of Touchstone.
A Journal of Mere Christianity—Delivered to Your Door
- Essays on theology, culture, and the Church
- Contributors from across the Christian traditions
Six print issues (one year) of Touchstone, plus full online access and PDF downloads for only $39.95.
Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives for only $19.95.
bulk subscriptions
Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.
Transactions will be processed on a secure server.
more from the online archives
26.5—Sept/Oct 2013
The Perils of Pragmatism in Christian Attitudes Toward the Liberal Arts by Robin Phillips
32.2—March/April 2019
Reality Shows, Even in a Popular TV Series by C. E. Smith
calling all readers
Please Donate
"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand
"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor
