I’ve been trying to find the best phrase to capture our need for silence and solitude. The picture I have in my mind is that of an hourglass being turned upside down — of time inverted.
I can’t seem to find the right phrase to capture how important it is to refuel in life through quiet time alone with God.
Thoughts?
I’ve always thought that those trees in Africa with the wide branches, like you see at sunset in the movies, were a really cool picture of solitude.
How about a still, off-center pendulum: time suspended?
From the Lewis Carroll poem, “Solitude”:
I love the stillness of the wood:
I love the music of the rill:
I love to couch in pensive mood
Upon some silent hill.
Scarce heard, beneath yon arching trees,
The silver-crested ripples pass;
And, like a mimic brook, the breeze
Whispers among the grass.
Here from the world I win release,
Nor scorn of men, nor footstep rude,
Break in to mar the holy peace
Of this great solitude.
Here may the silent tears I weep
Lull the vexed spirit into rest,
As infants sob themselves to sleep
Upon a mother’s breast.
But when the bitter hour is gone,
And the keen throbbing pangs are still,
Oh, sweetest then to couch alone
Upon some silent hill!
To live in joys that once have been,
To put the cold world out of sight,
And deck life’s drear and barren scene
With hues of rainbow-light.