Silence, Tension, and the Work of God

What three days at an Ignatian silent retreat taught me about solitude, slowing down, and the quiet work God does in the soul.

Photo by Mark Timberlake on Unsplash

Henri Nouwen’s words, when he wrote about the Desert Fathers and Mothers are impactful. He noted that solitude is “the place of conversion, the place where the old self dies and the new self is born.”

A few weeks back, I shared that I was heading to a Catholic monastery for an Ignatian silent retreat, and I received so many messages from many of you along with lots of questions. I even spoke with a few of you personally who had never heard of anything like this and would have never considered such an experience. All of that leads me to this post, where I want to share more about the retreat and some of the details of what it was like.

For some context that many of you already know, my church history has been both wonderful and fairly narrow. All of my adult life in the Church has been spent in two very well-known Evangelical Protestant churches. It has been an incredible experience for my family and me. However, as I have had the opportunity to travel around the world, visiting and serving the global Church, I have been exposed to a much broader tapestry of the Christian faith.

What I have come to appreciate is that, much like in business or building a great product, you cannot and should not try to be all things to all people. Different expressions of the Church tend to find their lane and lean into what they are called to be. They work hard to faithfully steward the particular space God has entrusted to them.

This strategy is wise, and I understand it. But for me personally, it also meant that my exposure to parts of the Church that are more contemplative, liturgical, ancient, and Spirit-formed was fairly limited.

Over the years, I have slowly begun exploring that world through reading, learning, and spiritual practices. I have deeply appreciated voices like Richard Rohr, Richard Foster, Ronald Rolheiser, John Mark Comer, Henri Nouwen, and Ruth Haley Barton. Along the way, I have also been shaped by the wisdom of Dallas Willard, Thomas Merton, Ignatius of Loyola, Teresa of Ávila, John Ortberg, and Trevor Hudson, all of whom invite us into a deeper, quieter life with God.

At some point in that journey of reading and curiosity, I kept encountering the spiritual tradition flowing from Ignatius of Loyola. Ignatius developed what are called the Spiritual Exercises, a set of practices designed to help people slow down, listen to God, and discern the movements of the Spirit in their lives.

What struck me most about Ignatian spirituality was its simplicity and depth. It assumes something that many of us say we believe but rarely practice. God is present and active in our everyday lives, and if we slow down enough, we can learn to notice His voice, His invitations, and even His gentle corrections.

Many of the thinkers I mentioned earlier point to this same idea in different ways. Dallas Willard once wrote, “You must arrange your days so that you are experiencing deep contentment, joy, and confidence in your everyday life with God.” That kind of life does not happen accidentally. It requires intention, rhythm, and space. Thomas Merton warned that the noise of the modern world can easily drown out the deeper life of the soul. And writers like Trevor Hudson remind us that spiritual growth rarely happens in a hurry. Instead, it unfolds slowly through quiet attentiveness to God.

All of that slowly built a curiosity in me.

What would it actually look like to step away from the noise for a few days and simply be with God?

Not leading a meeting.
Not creating a strategy.
Not building something.
Not preparing a deck or a talk.
Just listening.

That question is what eventually led me to sign up for a three-day Ignatian silent retreat.

And yes, the word silent means exactly what it sounds like.

For most of the retreat, there is no conversation. No phones. No meetings. No podcasts. No music. Just prayer, walking, journaling, reflecting on the spiritual direction that is given, and a lot of time alone with God.

For someone who has spent most of his adult life building, leading, and moving at a pretty fast, even hyper pace, this felt both intriguing and a little terrifying.

But as I would soon discover, the silence was not empty. Far from it. It was full and absolutely amazing.

However, let me be clear. The no phone, no talking, and complete silence at first was very uncomfortable.

The first several hours felt strange. My instincts kept reaching for the things I normally depend on. I would instinctively think about checking my phone, reading or researching something online, or filling the quiet with activity. The reality is that my body was in a hurry to get to the next thing. And you know what? There was no “next thing.”

Even my mind felt noisy. It was surprising to realize just how accustomed I have become to constant input and movement.

But slowly, something began to shift.

The quiet and solitude started doing their work.

The pace of my mind slowed down. Journaling felt different when nothing was competing for my attention. Prayer felt less like something I needed to accomplish and more like something I could simply enter. Walking the grounds of the monastery became its own form of prayer.

What I began to experience was something that many of the contemplative writers talk about, but that is hard to understand until you actually live it. There is a strange tension in silence. At first it feels uncomfortable and unproductive. Yet inside that tension, there is something deeply beautiful.

One of the things I have learned from Richard Rohr over the years is that many of us in Western Christianity are trained to seek quick resolution. We tend to see the world in binaries. Right or wrong. Black or white. Productive or wasted time. But life with God is often far more nuanced than that.

Jesus repeatedly invites us beyond simple binary thinking into a deeper way of seeing. Again and again in the Gospels we see Him leading people into a both-and way of living. A life that holds tension while also experiencing abundance.

That is what the retreat began to teach me.

The silence was uncomfortable and beautiful at the same time.
The stillness felt unfamiliar and deeply life-giving.
The absence of noise created space for something fuller.

It reminded me that part of spiritual formation is not always about adding more disciplines to our lives. Many of us, myself included, naturally gravitate toward doing more. More reading. More studying. More building. More activity.

But some of the most important disciplines in the Christian life are actually disciplines of abstinence.

Silence.
Solitude.
Simplicity.
Slowing down.
Letting go of constant input.

Practices that create space rather than filling it.

I often talk with others about how I see this same principle in the artistry of sculpting. Sculpting is an art form where removal, chiseling, and shaping reveal the beauty the artist sees within the stone. The beauty is not created by adding more, but by carefully subtracting what does not belong.

In many ways, spiritual formation works the same way.

As I left the monastery, one thing became clear to me. I want to prioritize a silent retreat each year. Not because it sounds spiritual or dramatic, but because there was something deeply grounding about stepping away long enough to simply be with God. Yet what I really found myself longing for was not just an annual retreat, but a different way of living. A slower, more attentive life with God woven into the everyday rhythms of my days. In many ways, I realized I do not just want to experience this kind of life occasionally. I want to grow into it. To become more centered. More attentive to God’s presence in the ordinary.

In many ways, the experience reminded me of Jesus’ teaching about new wine and new wineskins.

New wine cannot simply be poured into old skins that have been stretched and hardened by years of use. The new wine requires something flexible, something open, something ready to receive what is being poured out.

Silence, solitude, and these kinds of spiritual rhythms begin to do that work in us. They soften the old wineskins of our lives. They loosen our grip on constant activity and productivity. They create space for God to do something new within us.

I left the retreat with a deep sense that God often does His deepest work in our stillest moments.

It reminded me of the story of Elijah in 1 Kings 19. A great wind tore through the mountains, then an earthquake, then a fire. Yet the Lord was not in any of those. And after the fire came what many translations call a gentle whisper, but what others describe even more beautifully as the sound of sheer silence.

It was there, in that quiet moment, that Elijah heard the voice of God.

During those three days of silence, God spoke and did a beautiful work in my soul. And when it was time to leave, I found myself wanting more.

Until next time,

Terry