Silence and Solitude

“Let him who cannot be alone beware of community. Let him who is not in community beware of being alone.
Each by itself has its pitfalls and perils. One who wants fellowship without solitude plunges into the void of words and feelings, and one who seeks solitude without fellowship perishes in the abyss of vanity, self-infatuation, and despair…
The mark of solitude is silence, as speech is the mark of community.”
-Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together

Perhaps the lack of silence and solitude is the hardest part about being a full-time mommy. If speech is the mark of community, as Dietrich claims above, then by golly, I’ve had no shortage of community for about 5 years now. From 24/7 motherhood, to church, friends, family, marriage, even a co-housing situation – speech/community has been everywhere. And there have been far too many seasons of imbalance in which the “life with others” part of my life is way overpowering the “life alone” part, which plunges me more times than I care to recount into the “void of words and feelings”.

My hope is that I can be more grateful for this time in life, knowing I will miss the noise of children when they grow up and leave home. Despite a throat/ear area swollen from allergies right now, I am trying really hard to remind myself that from the mouths of babes and infants He has ordained praise (and not just mind-blowing volume-defying nonsense!)

It’s all about balance. Balancing the noise with the silence. SO hard to do with kids around you all the time but I must find a way. I’ve got some ideas so maybe I’ll come back to the blog when I’ve implemented them

In the meantime, a photo journey of the noise/silence journey of this last week…

silence.

noise.

silence.

noise.

silence.

noise.

silence.