I’m going to do something foolish and write about a spiritual practice I’ve only just begun: the practice of silence and solitude. Because I’m a novice, I barely know what I’m talking about. I don’t have eloquence on this subject—merely pained honesty—but I offer what I have in the knowledge that my problem of noise addiction, and the time-tested solution of silence, is not mine alone.

The Constant Distraction
For years, my drug of choice has been noise. I’m not prone to distraction; I am hooked on it. “All the unhappiness of men arises from one single fact: They cannot stay quietly in their own room,” said Blaise Pascal, the 17th-century theologian and scientist.

For reasons I don’t yet understand, I forsook my former practice of peace, which included long, solitary walks, bike rides and staying quietly in my room for hours. For most of the last decade, I’ve cultivated noise—constant media, constant conversation, constant distraction. The spiritual, emotional and psychological toll has been heavy. Especially heavy has been the price to my calling—to the work I feel compelled to do and want to do, yet have forsaken.

Dallas Willard wrote that silence and solitude are the most radical of spiritual disciplines; they are as foundational to a life of godliness as are prayer and reading Scripture. They are also, for contemporary North Americans, the most countercultural of spiritual practices. Nothing in our culture encourages us to be quiet within ourselves, to sink into a sacred space where we are accompanied by precisely nothing—not a devotional, not an iPod tuned to worship music or sermons, not even a good friend. That’s what the practice of silence and solitude requires because it’s only when we come with nothing that we can be naked enough to approach Something or, rather, Someone.

For the past few weeks I’ve been doing something that terrifies me. Once a day, I turn away from every possible distraction, sit down on the floor or in a chair, close my eyes, and … that’s it. I just sit, force myself to be silent and hope God might speak to me in the silence—for … 10 … whole … minutes.

It’s the most radical, painful, gutwrenching spiritual act of my life. It doesn’t feel particularly good. I always look forward to it being over.

Be Still and Know
A companion in this process has been Ruth Haley Barton’s Invitation to Solitude and Silence. One of the remarkable things about Barton’s book, which was written for noise addicts and silence novices like me, is how it subtly reveals the great gains possible in a life of dedication to sacred spaces. Early in the book, while describing the basics of the practice of silence and solitude, Barton admits that for “the first year or so it seemed like all I did was struggle” to keep quiet for a few short moments at most. For the first year or so! In a culture fed on 30-day—even 30-minute—solutions to life’s myriad problems, it’s tough to imagine giving a year-plus to Step One of a new practice.

To be silent, says Willard, is to choose to “leave all outcomes to God.” As a professional, father, husband and Christian, I’ve long lived as if activity were the primary value. I’ve lived a life of to-do lists. Now, more and more, I’m beginning to choose to do nothing. It’s one of the greatest acts of trust I’ve ever attempted. When I do nothing, I trust that God is. I relinquish all my desires and expectations; I cancel my fears and believe that, in silence, I will begin to be reshaped.