Central Lutheran Church - Elk River
Central Lutheran Church - Elk River
The Healing Power of Silence and Solitude {Reflections}
Have you ever wondered how silence and solitude can lead to profound psychological healing? This week on Reflections, we explore Carl Jung's illuminating insights on the numinous—the divine encounters that can transform our inner lives. You'll hear personal stories from my journey as a pastor, including my transformative experiences with Youth With A Mission (YWAM) and the practice of quiet times. We'll venture into the wilderness of Pachamon Terrace and the Animus program to underline the necessity of stepping away from life's chaos and connecting with the divine.
Join us as we delve into spiritual practices such as prayer, worship, Bible reading, and solitude, and how they can open our hearts to God's constant presence. Discover how slowing down and becoming more attentive can awaken your senses to God's healing power, bringing comfort and restoration to your soul. We warmly invite you to worship with us at Central in Elk River, whether in person or online, and encourage you to share this journey with friends. Grace and peace to all as we embark on this path together.
Join us! Facebook | Instagram | www.clcelkriver.org
What's 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 famous psychotherapist and wrote tons of stuff. And I am just barely scratching the surface on some Jungian thought. But 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, but he writes this about God. I think is really interesting.
Speaker 1: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 I think he means God, the divine, the mysterious, and so what I would call God, so he says 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 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 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 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 what he calls the numinous. This is also what Rudolph Otto calls God the numinous.
Speaker 1:I remember when I was younger I was a part of a ministry called YWAM, or Youth, 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 your whole day, and every day in the week anyway, you had to have what they call 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 7 to 7.45, the whole school was to be quiet and everyone was to be having these quiet times with God. And the idea, of course, is to help create and I'm not sure if it worked or not, 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 presence of God all around us. And so we would do that through various, you know, in various ways.
Speaker 1:And as I've gotten older, I really, you know, as a person of faith, I kind of began to fall in love myself, because 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 guy 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 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 so I anyway I got into this habit of going to this place in Cambridge, minnesota, called Pachamon Terrace and it was.
Speaker 1:It's a Catholic retreat center where they have these little hermitages and they're kind of in the woods, not super remote, but they're in the woods and there's several of them. You do see people around and you're in a little hut and there's a roof over your head. You get bread delivered to your little cabin every day. It's really this quaint. It's a beautiful place. 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 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 these kinds of experiences.
Speaker 1:Where I go out into the woods and usually there's a bunch of us that go part of a program called Animus, where I go out into the woods and usually there's a bunch of us that go part of a program called Animus 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 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 a, you know in a camping setting, by yourself, but you can do them.
Speaker 1: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 take them to be some kind of a magical thing or a 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 and all of a sudden God sort of comes from out of nowhere to be with us. Or maybe we even think, oh, 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. And that's what I thought when I was younger, I think.
Speaker 1:But 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, 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.
Speaker 1:So when we engage in spiritual practice and the rhythms of prayer and gathering for worship together on a Sunday morning and we read our Bibles, 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.
Speaker 1: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, slowing down, disconnecting and sort of 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 it.
Speaker 1:So, friends, this morning or whatever time of day it is, when you're listening to this, may you know that God is present. Doing is when you're listening to this. May you know that God is present, doing work in your life already, and may you come awake and alive and notice him in every way. And may your experience of the numinous 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 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 clcelkriverorg Peace.
