Our world continues to be drowned in a chaos of noise, distraction and information. In his prescient novel Brave New World Aldous Huxley envisioned this as the dictatorship of a culture of entertainment. It was characterized by constant information and superficial pleasure. Today, we are solicited to enjoy distraction for distraction’s sake. We are now in what business and marketing people call an economy of attention; whomever can hold our attention long enough to push a service or a product will see their profit margins grow.
This culture of distraction is compounded by more and more human beings who are tethered to their tech devices with its multiple notifications and its plethora of affordable video and film streaming services. Writers from different fields now refer to our “techno addictions” and other similar terms to evoke our unhealthy dependence on technology and its debilitating effects on cognitive retention, emotional and psychological development and on creativity.
Simone Weil, the Jewish French philosopher, spoke of how very few people are capable of true attention, focus and concentration. She saw the ability to hold and keep our attention on one single task or moment as a true spiritual practice. Really focusing and noticing and becoming completely absorbed by study is a sign of being able to live in the deeper recesses of human consciousness and creativity. She actually believed that carefully study was a form of meditation and prayer. I believe this to be truer than ever. How many of us have noticed our struggles with concentration when reading an article or a book? How many have grappled with feelings of surprise when we found ourselves panic stricken or empty and lost when we had misplaced our smart phones?
The purpose of retreats and silent prayer is to favor and explore silence in order to live from a deeper place where meaning can be found only in stillness. Retreat houses and silent prayer offer the necessary oasis from our distracted and distracting world: it values slowing the pace of our frenetic lives in order to hear God speaking in the subtle breeze. God is dynamic; he can be heard and even felt in work; in the hustle and bustle of daily life and in dramatic events. Yet as with Elijah, God is often not found in the mighty phenomenon of earthquake, fire and lightning; God is heard in “a sound of sheer silence” (1 King, 19: 11).
People often tell me their busy lives does not allow for times of silence or retreats. My answer to them goes like this: “We do not need to become monks or contemplative nuns to find 30 minutes once or twice a day for silence.” In retreats and workshops, I often ask people to tabulate the amount of time they spend on each activity per day. Many realize they spend more than 2 to 4 hours per day on social media and e-mail, on streaming films and shows or watching TV. I ask them, “if you cut this chunk of time by 30 minutes once or twice a day, how do you think it will affect your life?” Some have come back to tell me that not long after they began practicing silent prayer every day, changes begin to occur in themselves and in how they experience their day. They feel more available and open to listening to God’s invitations for deeper living.
Others have had more searing or painful experiences; a purification or a call for deeper healing. After making a commitment to daily silent prayer or going on a retreat for a longer period of time, many expressed how old wounds resurface: buried grief, unresolved resentment, festering shame and guilt or crippling unforgiveness from a past meaningful or traumatic relationship. These are times where heart, soul and our even our bodies ache in yearning to be whole again. This should not be surprising: many of our distractions contribute to burying powerful life energies within us. Silence allows them to spring forth from our God given dignity and identity. God wants us to be fully alive; God does not want us to “live lives of quiet desperation” as Henri David Thoreau wrote.
Spiritual practices such as; Lectio Divina, Centering Prayer, Imaginative Contemplative Prayer, the Jesus prayer, attending liturgies and masses, walking in nature, befriending our natural solitude, all have the capacity to teach us to listen to God in his Word and in the stillness. At first, it might feel like we are “wasting time” because it reveals our restlessness and our obsession with productivity. When we enter God’s realm, the doorway often seems counterintuitive. Wasting time becomes an opportunity, the way hanging out with a close friend opens us to our capacity for mutual intimacy. When we learn to tend to silence by taking time to waste time, we tap into the deep waters of spiritual nurturing and purification. There is no equal anywhere or in anything else. There, we can let God beckon us to God’s self; “The Spirit and the bride say ‘Come’, and let everyone who hears say ‘Come’, and let everyone who is thirsty come. Let anyone who wishes take the water of life as a gift” (Revelation 22:17).
Fr. Daniel Renaud, OMI is a priest, religious and itinerant preacher with the Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate of the US province. Mentored by Fr. Ronald Rolheiser, OMI he ministers from the campus of the Oblate School of Theology (OST) in San Antonio, Texas. Fr. Renaud has degrees and training in drama education, theology, pastoral ministry, psychodrama and spiritual direction. He has preached retreats to priests, men and women religious, deacons and wives and lay people on desire and mysticism, 12 steps recovery, Ignatian spirituality and Jungian shadow work, ecological conversion, the Beatitudes and human development and grief and life transitions. Fr. Renaud is a member of Spiritual Director International (SDI). His areas of interest are resilience, finding one’s mission and purpose in life, spiritual healing of traumatic relationships and everyday mysticism.