A place of prayer in a busy world

The soul's need for solitude, silence and stillness

I’m on sabbatical for a few weeks, and my wife and I are staying in a mountain house in northeastern Alabama while I work on a writing project. A die-hard Georgia fan, I had to swallow hard before entering enemy territory but it’s turned out that my fears were unfounded. This area doesn’t seem to have the same level of rabid support for the Crimson Tide as the rest of the state and every time I’ve worn my Bulldog hat in public one or two passing strangers have shouted “Go ‘Dawgs!” Maybe there’s hope for Alabama fans after all.

We chose this place for several reasons. First, because it’s remote but not too remote. We can drive home in a few hours if necessary. Second, the house allows pets and we wanted to take our dog with us. He’s napping beside me right now as I type, each of us engaged in our favorite activity. That we’re doing them on a screen porch on a crisp mountain morning makes them even better. But the third reason, I think, is most important. There’s an atmosphere of tranquility and peace here that’s evident even in its online pictures. The grounds are beautifully landscaped with a wide variety of plants lining winding paths. A noisy fountain presides over a fish pond containing a dozen or so goldfish that bull rush me every time I feed them. They swim back and forth across the surface of the water with their mouths wide open, scooping up the food like little Hoovers. Bird feeders attract the diverse species that call this region home, filling the woods with their calls. Best of all, a small prayer chapel sits to one side, half hidden in a grove of Oakleaf Hydrangeas, serving as the spiritual center for everything else. That’s its picture at top.

I go to the chapel to pray the first thing every morning. Built as a ten foot square with a twelve foot ceiling, it can only accomodate one or two people at a time. The small alter at the front holds an open Bible, a framed picture of the cross and a single candle. Two windows on either side provide a view of the surrounding trees, so lush with summer growth that it seems the air itself is charged with life. The place smells of old wood and moss, a scent that’s not off-putting but comfortable, real, earthy. The floor is flagstone, the walls are cedar, and the sparse furniture is cracked and worn. I often think that the chapel belongs in rural England.

Author and teacher Bill Eliff builds his understanding of prayer on Hebrews 4:16, “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.” He says that we should approach prayer as though entering the very throne room of heaven and begin our prayer time by imagining the act of opening the royal doors and walking into the presence of the Father. Eliff points out that the only reason we can take so bold an action is that Jesus, the crucified, resurrected and ascended Son of God, sits also on a throne, adjacent to the Father, making intercession for us as we pray. Once in the Lord’s presence, we’re free to pour out our needs, fears, confessions, failures and questions, confident that we’re heard because of Jesus’ atoning work on the cross.

While I love Eliff’s biblical teaching and have personally benefited from it, when I walk through the faded doors of the little prayer chapel the experience isn’t quite the same. It’s less exalted and more down to earth. Less cerebral and more personal. Less imaginative and more organic. Less didactic and more intuitive. Less awe-inspiring and more tender. The prayer chapel invites me into a way of praying that’s closer to where I really live. Don’t get me wrong. Eliff as well as many other gifted men and women have a great deal to teach about prayer. But while seminars, books, conferences and classes may give important information about prayer, they’re less successful at getting people to actually pray. What happens in the prayer chapel is the opposite of that—maybe a better word is “complement”—and brings me into the mystery of prayer as a gift.

The secret of the prayer chapel is that it offers three qualities critical for anyone yearning for a deeper experience of prayer: solitude, silence and stillness. The three are easy to describe but hard to find. They aren’t new, innovative or surprising. In fact, previous generations of believers understood their importance and practiced them on a regular basis. The problem is that in our modern world the qualities have been pushed to the periphery of faith by the pace of life, the shallowness of the world and the intrusion of the internet into every facet of our existence. Not that there’s anything unique about a prayer chapel in the mountains in order to find them. Any place will serve for a willing heart. If we want to find a deeper, more authentic way to pray, what’s important is that we do whatever it takes to embrace at least some degree of all three.

Solitude

Jesus speaks to the critical need for solitude as a condition for prayer in his Sermon on the Mount:

But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you. (Matthew 6:6)

In the preceeding verses, Jesus criticizes the public displays of religion practiced by many of the religious leaders of the day. They had the habit of making a show of how much money they gave away, offering prayer in public places so others could see how religious they were, and openly fasting as a way of winning admiration over the high level of their commitment to their faith. Their religion was all about performance and impressing other people. In contrast, Jesus tells his followers to focus not on what other people think but on what God thinks. That’s why he calls us to a kind of prayer that has an audience of only one. Solitude, he says, isn’t being alone. It’s being alone with God.

Silence

Regarding silence, few Scripture passages are better known than the one describing the prophet Elijah on Mt Horeb:

And he said, “Go out and stand on the mount before the Lord.” And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore the mountains and broke in pieces the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind and earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake, fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire the sound of a low whisper. And when Elijah heard it, he wrapped his face in his cloak and went out and stood at the entrance of the cave. And behold, there came a voice to him and said, “What are you doing here, Elijah?” (1 Kings 19:7-12)

Before Elijah heard the still, small voice of God, he had to disengage from the many other voices clamoring for his attention. There was the voice of King Ahab, demanding the nation of Israel worship Baal instead of the Lord. Later, the 450 prophets of Baal shouted, cried and preached to the Jews on Mt Carmel as they sought to prove the existence of their idolatrous god. There was Queen Jezebel’s words, threatening Elijah with death because of his faithfulness to the Lord. Elijah even had to contend with his own voice as he sunk into despair and hopelessness. “And he asked that he might die, saying, ‘It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life, for I am no better than my fathers.’” (1 Kings 19:4) The great truth of his experience on Mt Horeb when he finally heard God’s voice, was that he first had to silence all the others.

Finding silence today may be our greatest challenge because we’re bombarded by other voices all day long. Phone calls, texts, emails, meetings, conversations, social media, videos. The number, diversity and intensity of the many voices vying for our attention can be overwhelming—and often is. And the consequence of all those voices is that God’s voice gets lost in the clamor. If we want to hear the voice of God as we pray, silence is a precondition.

Stillness

Stillness is the least understood of the three qualities, especially for most of us in America. The fact is that we’re the least still people on earth.

Be still and know that I am God. (Psalm 46:10)

It’s hard to define stillness. The Orthodox church has a concept they call hesychasm that’s the state of a soul when it’s not disturbed by outer sensations or inner turmoil, a state that’s perfectly tranquil and at peace. For them, such a quality is necessary to achieve a mystical union with Jesus. That seems odd to me. Better, I think, to think of stillness as the tranquility of an early morning on the beach as the sun appears on the horizon, the rising of the moon on a clear night, a lake without a breathe of wind or a child sleeping peacefully in her bed. In short, those common experiences and sights that we miss unless we’re paying attention, scenes in nature or in ordinary life that are set apart by their difference from and opposition to the motion going on around them. Stillness is the capacity to not have your spirit disturbed by whatever chaos is going on around you or in you. A prayer made in stillness is positioned to receive a divine answer. That’s the truth behind Psalm 27:13-14:

I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living! Wait for the Lord; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!

Pam and I will return to our ordinary lives in a couple of weeks. But even after we return, the vision of a small, weathered chapel hidden in the woods will remain in my mind. Along with the lessons I learned there of about finding a place of prayer in a busy world through solitude, silence and stillness.