Solitude: Monk Mode
by Billy Strother
If you have not yet heard the phrase “monk mode” in conversation, you soon will. It is an escalating productivity activity, which surfaced in the late 2000s and has been gaining traction. The three common principles of monk mode are:
Abstaining from specific distractions (sequestering yourself from the white noise of life);
Establishing a definite start and stop date (or time, if it is a part of the day); and
Defining a clear goal or project to pursue during your journey in monk mode.
Monk mode is pursuing solitude for productivity toward a particular goal or project. It is pursued solitude for a purpose. We are not talking about silence for silence’s sake. We are talking about silencing routine or interruptive distractions over which we have control.
Prolonged silence makes most of us severely uncomfortable. On a Sunday morning, just stand on the platform and look at the audience for 60 seconds before saying a word. You will see an uncomfortable restlessness grow quickly among the congregants. For many, silence is discomforting, so much so, some are compelled to have some background noise no matter the moment: ear buds, streaming videos, background television sounds, or scrolling internet distractions. There is an actual clinically-documented fear of silence: sedatephobia.
But to equate silence without a goal with solitude falls short of solitude’s practice as a spiritual discipline. The best practice of solitude is to have a goal in its moments of embrace: to pursue the voice of Jesus, to clarify purpose, to memorize Scripture, to accomplish a spiritual or professional task, to study God’s Word, to engage in repentance, to reflect on the journey ahead, or to write a small group lesson. You can make your own list of possibilities. It all depends upon your goal, what you desire to accomplish in your time of elective solitude. The time pursuing solitude with purpose might capture 15 minutes or an hour, or might self-sequester for days, or even weeks: monk mode.
I know for myself, if I do not make solitude time by putting it on my calendar, then I will never make time. And all of us, well, only have so much time. Spiritual discipline happens not by accident; we must capture, arrest, and schedule those blocks of time for solitude, or the tyranny of the urgent will allow us no opportunity to practice the spiritual discipline of solitude.
Have you heard Psalm 46:10? “Be still, and know that I am God. …” That verse is about solitude for the purpose of experiencing the transcendent and overwhelming presence of the Lord. It is not silence for the sake of silence; the verse is advocating a time of solitude on purpose with a purpose.
At the age of 30, in 1801, Ludwig van Beethoven first began to complain about his hearing: “From a distance I do not hear the high notes of the instruments and the singers’ voices.” As his hearing continued to diminish, to hear the music, it is said that Beethoven would strike piano keys with such force that he would often wreck the piano he was playing. By the time he turned 45, Beethoven was completely deaf and contemplated suicide, but kept on. The composer was cut off from the world of sound. He would often put a pencil between his teeth and press it against the piano’s soundboard to feel the chords he played.
It was during the latter part of his life, totally without hearing, that Beethoven grew to become the most brilliant as a composer, forever shaking and shaping classical music forward with his Ninth Symphony. Once Beethoven jettisoned his rage against silence, and then embraced silence with purpose—solitude—the best came out of him.
Once we, as Christian leaders, embrace silence with a purpose (the spiritual discipline of solitude), we posture ourselves for Jesus to bring out the best of us.
