Lessons From Silence: My Three Days at Cloisters on the Platte
A year and a half ago, at the invitation of a colleague, I attended a several-day silent retreat at a Catholic retreat center in Nebraska. I didn’t speak for three days apart from the first and last meal. I attended daily lessons provided by a retreat guide and spent the rest of the time in solitude. I read, prayed, thought, wrote, ate, and slept.
It was my first experience of this type, and I didn’t know what to expect. I brought several books, but apart from the Bible, I didn’t open a single one of them. In my world of multiple meetings a day, dozens of daily conversations, competing priorities, a constant influx of emails and phone class, and a long ” to-do” list that grows as quickly as items get checked off, this was a strikingly different way to spend my time. Even eighteen months later, I’m still making sense of the experience, but here are some of my observations so far.
Silence and Tinnitus
For years, I’ve lived with tinnitus, and it seems to get louder as time passes. It is an alarm clock volume high-pitched ringing in my left year that never stops. As it developed, I tended to get my mind off it by focusing on other things: reading, writing, listening to music, playing music, exercising, engaging in thought experiments, focusing on projects, etc. So, I was nervous about going into an environment of silence. To my surprise, I have no memory of the ringing during those three days. I’m sure it was still there, but I didn’t notice it for some reason. All I remember are the walks in the woods, enjoying the beautiful spaces, quiet moments of prayer, and reading Scripture. It was an unexpected gift.
Slowing Down
I arrived with a stack of books, ready to fill the day with reading and taking notes. That didn’t happen. Instead, I walked the grounds, prayed, and read the Scriptures. I did browse their library for a few hours, but other than that, it was an incredibly slow and simple few days. The time didn’t pass quickly, nor did it feel like a chore. I just enjoyed the slow and straightforward cadence of each day.
Noticing More
By the second day, I started to take a greater interest in the things around me. I enjoyed relaxing on a porch, listening to birds, watching a fox wander the grounds, and noticing the changes in wind and its impact on the trees. I’m not describing some mystical experience. It was just that, instead of running from one appointment to the next, I was enjoying what was in front of me—and noticing it.
No Profound Revelations
I did not go there seeking some profound revelation or grand epiphany, and I didn’t experience any. Well, that is not entirely true. There are still passages of the Scriptures that captured my attention, ones that I found myself thinking about, praying about, and giving more careful attention—and some of those readings are vivid memories to this day. I found myself reading Ezekiel 36 and marveling at and meditating upon the words in Ezekiel 36:26, “And I will give you a new heart, and a new spirit I will put within you. And I will remove the heart of stone from your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.” Similarly, I read through the four Gospels and the book of Daniel, and some passages seemed to capture my thoughts and attention more than others. Yet, it was not as if I experienced some great “Road to Damascus” moment. I just enjoyed hearing God speak to me in the place where he promises to be found—in His Word.
Rest Without Excess
I also slept better than I had in years, but not longer than usual. Each night, I fell asleep easily, awoke early, and felt rested and refreshed. There was no need for an alarm clock.
Never Bored
I’ve said this to many people, but I don’t get bored. I have not felt bored for thirty or forty years. Yet, I did wonder if the slowness and simplicity of these days would wear on me and lead to boredom. They didn’t. I didn’t need to search for things to keep me interested or engaged. I followed a simple daily schedule, did not overthink it, and thoroughly enjoyed it.
A Break from Problem-Solving
I’m a problem solver. My mind is almost always working on a dozen or so issues, so much so that it is not uncommon for me to get captured by an idea at 10 PM and finally fall asleep at 3-4 AM after putting the thoughts in writing. I love grappling with complexities, exploring scenarios, weighing options, mapping out plans, putting them into practice, and monitoring and adjusting. That is often three-fourths of many days for me. Often, when I’m just sitting in silence, my mind is at work on problems and possibilities. I even have pictureless dreams that I call “thought dreams,” which are just a night of solving some mental puzzle.
This is not a burden. I enjoy it, even as I create times to set it aside and enjoy people, a good book, or something else. Yet, the drive to solve problems seemed to disappear during this retreat.
Simplicity in Movement and Appetite
I spent a fair amount of time walking the beautiful grounds. They had stations of the cross and hiking trails. Like the rest of the time, it was simple and unhurried. I did not have any urge for snacks. I ate two modest meals a day, and that was enough for me. I don’t remember thinking about food at any other time of day.
A Lasting Quiet
When the retreat ended, I was not driven to tell others about it. This article is probably the most I’ve said, even though it was eighteen months ago. Yet, I do find that I took the experience of silence into the noise and busyness of my daily life. I enjoy being busy. I find it easy to concentrate on writing in a busy coffee shop or restaurant. Yet, when I do have moments of silence at home or elsewhere, something about this retreat seemed to teach me how to appreciate those moments even more.
Disclaimer: Do you use AI to write the articles on Substack? The words and ideas come from me, but I often use AI for Substack articles. I regularly use Grammarly, which is a form of AI, to aid in proofreading and editing my work. I also regularly use DALL-E to generate the images for most posts. In addition, I continue to evolve in my experimentation with the use of ChatGPT, Grok, CoPilot (and possibly other ChatBots in the future) to serve as an editor for my Substack publications.
What does this mean? There are three common scenarios, though I hope to experiment with others in the future:
I write a full first draft and then submit it to the ChatBot, asking it to serve as an editor, akin to how I have one or more people edit almost anything that is published in my formal capacity, or how editors review my manuscripts when they are submitted to a journal, newspaper, or book publisher.
I audio record myself speaking on a topic and then place the recording in a ChatBot to transcribe, remove disfluencies, and use this rough draft transcript to further refine the writing before publishing it.
I ask the ChatBot for examples, illustrations, or statistics relevant to a topic that I’m exploring in the article, research and review some of the content provided, and sometimes weave those into the writing.
I don’t use all of these methods in every article, but in a spirit of transparency, I offer this disclaimer/clarification.