#149 - The Healing Power of Silence and Solitude {Reflections Re-Release}

Silence feels like a luxury until you try it, and then it can feel like a threat. We start with a simple confession: silence and solitude are two of the hardest practices for many of us, and also two of the most valuable. With Pastor Ein on sabbatical, we’re re-releasing one of our most-listened-to Reflections talks because so many people are craving a calmer mind, a steadier soul, and a real encounter with God’s presence.

Ryan pulls a surprising thread from Carl Jung, who wasn’t known for institutional faith, yet wrote about the “numinous” the mysterious, divine reality that changes us. Jung’s claim is bold: approaching the numinous is “real therapy,” especially as we age and the deeper questions won’t stay quiet. We unpack what that means for spiritual formation, emotional healing, and the longing to feel awake again instead of numb, distracted, or stuck.

From there we get practical and personal: the struggle with structured “quiet time,” the overwhelm of too many options, and the slow discovery that silence and solitude can become a doorway to listening. Ryan shares retreat rhythms that range from a simple hermitage in the woods to wilder settings with fasting and long stretches alone, and why those uncomfortable moments can help us slow down, reconnect, and notice God in ways we usually miss.

The turning point is a short Zen story that flips the whole mindset: spiritual practices don’t make the sun rise, they keep us from being asleep when it does. If you’ve ever wondered whether prayer is performance, whether God feels far away, or how to begin again, this is a grounded place to start. Subscribe, share with a friend who needs quiet, and leave a review with the practice you want to try this week.

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Transcript

Why We Rerelease This Talk

SPEAKER_00 0:20

Hey everyone, Olivia here. As you probably know, Pastor Ein is on sabbatical this summer, so I will be re-releasing some of our favorite episodes from the Reflections podcast. Today's episode originally aired in June of 2024. Silence and solitude are two things I personally struggle with, and also two things that I have found out to be incredibly valuable. Apparently, I am not the only one either, because this is our most listened to episode. Enjoy.

Carl Jung On The Numinous

SPEAKER_01 0:51

What is up, everybody? My name is Ryan, and welcome to our Reflections podcast. This week I wanted to drop some Carl Jung on you. So if you don't know Carl Jung, Carl Jung was a famous, I guess famous, famous in many circles, uh famous uh psychotherapist, and wrote tons of stuff, and I am just barely scratching the surface on some Jungian thought. But I I think a lot of what he writes, if I understand it, is deeply fascinating. But he says this, check this out. And Jung was famously not a person of faith, so but he writes this about God, I think is it really interesting. He says, the main interest of my work, Jung says, is not concerned with the treatment of neuroses, but rather with the approach to the numinous. And by numinous, he I think he means God, the divine, the mysterious, and so what I would call God. So he says, like, the main point of my work is not really with the treatment of neuroses or like these psychological problems or disorders, but rather with the approach to the mysterious, to God. He says, but the fact is that the approach to the numinous or to God is the real therapy. And inasmuch you attain to the numinous, uh numinous experiences, you're released from the curse of pathology. What he's saying is that really he's not really aware of any of his patients that he's had in the second half of life, or like towards the end of their lives, whose problems could not have been solved by uh by contact or exposure to what he calls the numinous or what we call God. In other words, he's saying, look, if I can just sort of create experiences for people in which they can experience God, the trueness of God. And again, Jung had no love for institutional religion at all, but if he could create ways for people to approach God, it might just do a world of wonders for them. I love this. This is kind of essentially my my job as a pastor is to help create places and experiences in which people come awake and alive to the presence of God and experience the uh the what he calls the numinous. This is also what Rudolf Otto calls God, the Numinous. Um I remember when I was younger, I was a part of a ministry called WyWAM or Youth

Quiet Time And Learning Focus

SPEAKER_01 2:55

with a Mission. And in the very first, you go there for like three months to the school called a DTS or discipleship training school. And in the DTS, every morning they would like they would like regiment your whole schedule. They would schedule, schedule your whole day, and every day in the week, anyway, you had to have what they called the quiet time for I think it was a half an hour, maybe an hour long every morning. And you know, during these times you were to read your Bible or to pray, but from like seven to seven forty-five, the whole like school was to be quiet and everyone was to be having these quiet times with with God. And the idea, of course, is to help create, and I'm not sure if it worked or not. I think it I think it did for some people, but the idea was to create space in your schedule to encounter or try to encounter or to I don't know, somehow wake up to God and to the the presence of God all around us. And so we would do that through various, you know, in various ways. And and as I've gotten older, I really uh, you know, as a person of faith, I kind of began to fall in love myself because I I had a hard time with those quiet times. I didn't always know what to do in them. Like I was like, should I read my Bible? Should I sing a worship song? Should I journal? I was overwhelmed by the choices and the different options. But as I got older, I began to zero in on these certain experiences that really helped me, and they were experiences of silence and solitude. So I'm a I'm a guy,

Practicing Silence In Wild Places

SPEAKER_01 4:10

I love to talk. It's kind of what I do for a living in many ways as well. And so being with people and talking are two things I love. And silence and solitude are good for me because I don't do either of those. I get away from everybody, from the people, from talking and from sharing, and from just you know hearing myself talk out loud. It's like, and I get away and I experience and practice silence. And of course, with silence comes listening, and solitude mean being meaning being alone. And so I would take on, you know, I take these trips and I do these experiences for short amounts of time, and they got longer as I got older, but of just being alone and listening and being quiet. And uh so I anyway, I I got into this habit of going to this place in in Cambridge, Minnesota, called Pacham and Terrace, and it was it's these it's like a Catholic retreat center where they have these little hermitages, and they're they're kind of in the woods, not super remote, but they're in the woods, and there's several of them, and so you do see people around and you're in a little hut and there's like a roof over your head, and you get bread delivered to your little cabin every day, and it's really this quaint, it's a beautiful place. But I after a while I began to feel like this was almost a bit too domesticated. And if you go back and listen to our last podcast episode on uh Jesus is my homeboy, you'll kind of hear what I'm saying. But I began to long for doing something like this, but in a wild place. And so kind of the hot edges for me right now as a pastor and as a person are are these kinds of experiences where I go out in the woods, and usually there's a bunch of us that go uh part of a program called Animus, but and um and try to experience God out in the wild places in silence and solitude and fasting. And it's super difficult, I mean, because of all the obvious reasons, and especially for me, being alone and being quiet is very difficult. But it's in those moments where I begin to I feel like sort of like settle in to myself and into the into the wild world around me, and I can begin to kind of hear God in ways I hadn't before, and begin to be awake in ways I hadn't been before. It's like I disconnect from all the things and even the developed world itself, and I get to experience God, and it does a number on me. I mean, it's just it's so wonderful for my soul and my physical body as well as I begin to slow down. And here's what I've noticed too, like these kinds of practices, like what we call spiritual practices or rhythms like silence and solitude or fasting or even prayer, because you can do these, you don't have to be in the wild world or you know, in in a you know, in a camping setting by yourself,

Spiritual Practices As Waking Up

SPEAKER_01 6:35

but you can do them uh certainly worship gatherings on a Sunday morning, these are these kinds of things as well, these practices. But these practices are they're sometimes we we take them to be some kind of a magical thing or ritual in which we're conjuring up God or like trying to invoke God to be present when God is maybe somewhere else, and so then we do this thing where we pray or read our Bible or gather for worship, but also God sort of comes from out of nowhere to be with us. Um, or maybe we even think, oh, if I if I do these things, if I read my Bible enough or pray enough or go spend time in silence and solitude or fast long enough that somehow I'll impress God. And so to that, but I and that's what I thought when I was younger, I think. But I I heard this awesome story about the Zen master and his disciple, and I think it's very fitting. So there's a Zen master, and his disciple comes and was like, Hey, uh master, is there anything that I can do to make myself enlightened? And the Zen master replies, Well, as little as you can do to make the sun rise in the morning. And the disciple says, Well, then what use are the spiritual exercises that you talk about all the time? And the Zen master says, Well, to make sure that you're not asleep when the sun begins to rise. I love that. So we when we engage in spiritual practice and rhythms of prayer and gathering for worship together on a Sunday morning, and we read our Bibles, and or if you go into the woods and you camp alone for five days and you fast and you slow down and listen to God, it's not like you're making the sun come up or impressing God or somehow drawing God near to you as though God wasn't there already. Rather, what you're doing is you're opening yourself up and making sure you're ready and awake and paying attention when the sun comes up. And so it's a way of like kind of opening our own eyes and slowing down, disconnecting, and sort of uh finding a place where we can receive and have our ears open so that when God speaks, we're ready and we're listening. And when God is doing the things that God does, we can pay attention and notice

Blessing And How To Connect

SPEAKER_01 8:30

it. So, friends, this morning or whatever time of day it is when you're listening to this, uh, may you know that God is present doing work in your life already, and may you come awake and alive and and uh notice it in every way, and may your experience of the numinence of God, may this indeed begin to be a salve for your soul and medicine to your aching soul, and begin to undo years of uh of all kinds of wounds and trauma and these kinds of things. May God indeed bring healing to you in every way. Grace and peace, love you guys. Hey, if you enjoy this show, I'd love to have you share it with some friends. And don't forget you are always welcome to join us in person at Central in Elk River at 8 30, which is our liturgical gathering, or at 10 o'clock, our modern gathering. Or you can check us out online at clcelkriver.org. Peace.