As the power went out last night due to electricity rationing, I appropriately decided to read the "Solitude" chapter from Richard Foster's Celebration of Discipline. . .alone in the dark by candlelight, no less. Here are some interesting passages and/or quotes I pulled from it.Settle yourself in solitude and you will come upon Him in yourself. (Teresa of Avila)
Where shall the world be found, where will the word resound? Not here, there is not enough silence. (T.S. Eliot)
Let him who cannot be alone beware of community. . . .Let him who is not in community beware of being alone. . . .One who wants fellowship without solitude plunges into the void of words and feelings, and one who seeks solitude without fellowship perishes in the abyss of vanity, self-infatuation, and despair. (Dietrich Bonhoeffer)
Simply to refrain from talking, without a heart listening to God, is not silence. (Richard Foster)
A day filled with noise and voices can be a day of silence, if the noises become for us the echo of the presence of God, if the voices are, for us, messages and solicitations of God. (Catherine de Haeck Doherty)
All those who open their mouths, close their eyes! (Old Proverb)
It is easier to be silent altogether than to speak with moderation. (Thomas รก Kempis)
There is "a time to keep silent and a time to speak." (Ecclesiastes 3:7)
A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in a setting of silver. (Proverbs 25:11)
Be not rash with your mouth, nor let your heart be hasty to utter a word before God, for God is in heaven, and you upon earth; therefore let your words be few. (Ecclesiastes 5:2)
If we are silent, who will take control? God will take control, but we will never let him take control until we trust him. Silence is intimately related to trust. (Richard Foster)
Real silence, real stillness, really holding one's tongue comes only as the sober consequence of spiritual stillness. (Dietrich Bonhoeffer)
Much that is unnecessary remains unsaid. But the essential and the helpful thing can be said in a few words. (Dietrich Bonhoeffer)
Goals are discovered, not made. (Richard Foster)
Solitude and silence teach me to love my brothers for what they are, not for what they say. (Thomas Merton)
Listen to God's speech in his wondrous, terrible, gentle, loving, all-embracing silence. (Catherine de Haeck Doherty)