A profound exploration of the ache for quiet in a chaotic, noisy time of overstimulation and distraction--and the transformative effects of solitude, silence, and stillness--from the Modern living is inundated with noise, busyness, and a digital cycle fueled by outrage and fear. We are anxious, overstimulated, exhausted, and bone-dry in our souls. We ache for God yet can barely pay attention. Drawing on the wisdom of the contemplative tradition and spiritual practices that date back to the earliest centuries of the church, Comer invites readers to rediscover an ancient path of quiet, peace, and serenity--to step out of the chronic noise and constant motion of the modern world into the still, silent presence of the God of peace. What As with the pace of modern living, the volume of the modern world can cut off our hearts from God, colonize our minds, and make “practicing the presence of God” virtually impossible. It can damage our bodies and degrade our spirits. Comer is convinced quiet is the antidote--not just the quiet of a retreat or a morning hour, but an intentional quest to de-noise your overall life. And in doing so, to live just a little slower and softer before God.

Autorentext

John Mark Comer is the New York Times bestselling author of eight books, including Practicing the Way, which was named Christian Book of the Year by the ECPA, and The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry, which has sold more than a million copies and been translated into over twenty languages. He is a pastor and the founder of Practicing the Way, an organization working to see the renewal of apprenticeship to Jesus in our time. The Comers live in the Santa Monica Mountains just outside Los Angeles.

Klappentext

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A profound exploration of the ache for quiet in a chaotic, noisy time of overstimulation and distraction—and the transformative effects of solitude, silence, and stillness—from the New York Times bestselling author of Practicing the Way and The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry.

“The noise of the world doesn’t just hurt your ears—it harms your soul. John Mark Comer shows in this wonderful book how to step back from the world and find God in stillness.”—Arthur C. Brooks, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Build the Life You Want

Modern living is inundated with noise, busyness, and a digital cycle fueled by outrage and fear. We are anxious, overstimulated, exhausted, and bone-dry in our souls. We ache for God yet can barely pay attention.

Drawing on the wisdom of the contemplative tradition and spiritual practices that date back to the earliest centuries of the church, Comer invites readers to rediscover an ancient path of quiet, peace, and serenity—to step out of the chronic noise and constant motion of the modern world into the still, silent presence of the God of peace.

What The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry was to the speed of the modern world, this book is to the noise of it.

As with the pace of modern living, the volume of the modern world can cut off our hearts from God, colonize our minds, and make “practicing the presence of God” virtually impossible. It can damage our bodies and degrade our spirits.

Comer is convinced quiet is the antidote—not just the quiet of a retreat or a morning hour, but an intentional quest to de-noise your overall life.

And in doing so, to live just a little slower and softer before God.

Leseprobe
Beginning

A World of Noise

Twenty-one days.

In an isolated cabin, tucked into a moody, coastal forest above a remote beach in Puget Sound.
All *alone.
*
No phone.

No computer, email, or internet. You are required to hand over any devices upon check-in.

No *books.
*
A Bible is “allowed,” but with a gentle warning not to use it as a “distraction from God.”

No alcohol, no more than one cup of coffee per day, no exercise, even—nothing to “discharge the anxiety from your body.” A daily walk along the remote coastline is fine, but nothing that will get your heart rate up.

And no contact with people. I pack in all my own food, do all my own cooking—totally cut off from the outside world.

My sole human interaction takes place five mornings a week, at 5:50 A.M.—“because early in the morning your mind is more open to its subconscious”—when I sit for ninety minutes of depth therapy with a clinical psychologist. In his seventies, he is a true doctor of the soul. Thin white hair cascades past his shoulders; he looks suspiciously like Gandalf from the *Lord of the Rings.
*
Depth therapy is similar to regular therapy, minus the happy feelings at the end of a session. It’s aimed at identifying how your early childhood experiences created the subconscious patterns you live by today, which generally means facing a lot of your pain. I lie on a couch, feeling more than a little anxious, with Gandalf sitting behind me. We begin day one with my relationship with my father: “Let’s bring Dad into the room.” By day three, my mother. Then we trace the story of my life in concentric circles up to the present day. Over the next three weeks, we work through all of it.

As the sun comes up, it’s me and the wizard. We’re usually done by seven-thirty.

Then, until the sun goes down, it’s just me, the broken pieces of my soul, and God.

Each day, Gandalf gives me an assignment of some kind: to think about an aspect of my past; to journal about this, that, or the other; to occasionally do something theatrical (like the time he had me sit in the back of my car and re-create an experience of almost dying from SIDS in the car seat at six weeks old). The assignment usually takes me about an hour.

Nine A.M.: Twelve more hours to go.

Seven hours a week in therapy.

One hundred sixty-one utterly, completely alone.

This program is more than fifty years old, yet it has no name, no website, and no marketing strategy. I heard whispers of it for years but, honestly, what kind of person has time to go fully off-grid for three weeks? Not me. Until I did. After stepping down from a twenty-year run pastoring a church, I was gifted a once-in-a-lifetime sabbatical—and with it, a chance to go into monk mode for a little while.

It’s now or never.

As an isolophile (an introvert with a natural affinity for time alone in the quiet), I was betting on myself to nail it. Not only am I wired to enjoy time alone, but I’ve been teaching on solitude for years. Honestly, I was looking forward to it. I was bone-weary after two decades of pastoring. If nothing else, twenty-one days away from my phone would offer a much-needed digital detox. I figured the effect on my central nervous system alone would be worth the monkish austerity.
Easy, I thought.

*It was one of the most painful, harrowing, terrifying things I have ever done.
*
I barely made it through.

What did you do with all that time alone, you ask?

Reasonable question. I’m still not sure. I drew out every possible distraction—cooking, cleaning, walking-walking-walking, a daily cold plunge in the winter sea. But mostly I just sat there, feeling my pain, facing a life I’d been running away from, and listening—for God, and for the skittish fawn of my own soul.

By day three, I’m dying, more depressed than I’ve been in years, my dopamine levels in free fall. I realize that while I’ve spent a lot of time in “solitude, silence, and stillness,” I’ve always gone in with a bag of emotional props to keep me busy—books to read, a laptop for writing and calendar planning, a to-do list of projects, the occa…