I have these words from Thomas Merton’s True Solitude framed on tables throughout my house (I need reinforcement reminders):

“I ought to know by now that God uses everything that happens as a means to lead me into solitude. Every creature that enters my life, every instant of my days, will be designed to wound me with the realization of the world’s insufficiency, until I become so detached that I will be able to find God alone in everything. Only then will all things bring me joy.”

Meister Eckhart (1260- 1327) was a Germany mystic, theologian and philosopher. Eckhart taught a radical religious philosophy of seeing God in all. His mystical experiences and practical spiritual philosophy gained him a popular following, but it also caused him to be tried for heresy by a local inquisition. He thought that everything was God, and everything was God and also said, “Nothing in all creation is so like God as silence.”

I believe we need silence and solitude to hear God, those whispers on our soul that bring us joy.

My search for silence began about 10 years ago, continues today and will never cease. It’s become a close second to air. Some days, I think I’ll die when I can’t find silence in the real world.

My search for solitude brought me so many retreat center escapes that I also came to need like air. Now, I live in solitude (not silence, unfortunately), and I can breathe.

A good friend at the time suggested I do an online search for retreat centers when I was at my wit’s end with an unbearable neighbor, a work environment full of arguments and power struggles. I guess I whined one time too many, but had I not, she wouldn’t have introduced me to something I didn’t even know I needed or could have.

I fell in love my first trip to the Oldenburg Franciscan Center in Indiana. The retreat center hall was a novitiate built in 1963, and there were many things that had been impeccably kept and loved, and not updated. Pastel peach and seafoam schoolhouse bathroom walls, as an example. I often had the whole building to myself in the evenings. It was glorious, and I have an addictive personality, so I came just short of moving in for two years.

They had to close it for financial reasons a few years later, and I cried and cried. It felt like losing a member of the family.

I found a (lovely and appreciated but poor) substitute in sitting and walking in Crown Hill Cemetery. I started reading headstones and learning all I could about the people buried there and the cemetery, itself. The Foundation published a lovely book called Crown Hill: History, Spirit, and Sanctuary that I still keep on my coffee table and open to an arbitrary page many an evening.

When I moved to Tucson, finding a new retreat center was priority #…up there.

I found the Santa Rita Abbey, a silent retreat center in Sonoita, Arizona. I enjoyed it a time or two, but it was very popular (of course) and far from peaceful.

Then I found the Desert House of Prayer, where I retreated and eventually worked for two years before it closed during the lockdowns.

I have retreated to many a place amidst these, my favorites for particular reasons, and couldn’t recommend it more to others who seek silence or solitude or both.

From the Hermitage (Celeste) porch at the Desert House of Prayer

Silent centers are a must for me, and if that’s important to you, make sure that’s near the top of your search criteria. Many of them offer optional communal experiences, dining and otherwise, if that’s a preference, as well.

Since I can’t seem to depend on others, I’ve tried to create as much solitude and silence as I can in my own home, and dream as often as I can of my own retreat center dead center in 500 acres of forestland. Realistic! (But it fits with my city-building childhood love, sooo. Lol.)

“If I had a choice and my own will should decide a moment, I would remain silent in God’s hands. Oh, how sweet it is to rest there in perfect confidence.” ~ St Elizabeth Ann Seton

Silence

I’itoi Ki

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