Solitude
Thursday, March 19, 2020 at 9:03PM 
We long for connection, community and communion. It’s part of who we are as people, as Christians. It’s at the center of Christian life. And at the moment it’s becoming harder and harder. Our parishes are working overtime to full the gap. It doesn’t quite do the trick. However, it’s something and it is certainly necessary. We do what we can. That’s good. But maybe we fail to see some aspect of our situation.
The live stream Eucharist isn’t the same as the Body gathered and the Body received. The class or meeting on Zoom is fine; gets the business done. But its energy and connection are less than a half-life. The phone and email check-ins express genuine caring and yet they are not the same as sitting in a coffee shop face-to-face. We, the Church, are working very hard to fill the gaps. It’s necessary. It’s faithful. But as the days go by, and it’s been just days, all of us will know the tug of loneliness. Some will be in a panic with it. The efforts of our parishes and ourselves will be experienced as inadequate in many ways. And this thing, this unseen power, will be a force in our lives for months and maybe much longer. The unseen power—the virus and our lonliness.
God's invitation
This time of plague will sharpen the dynamic that is always there. God’s call and our flight from that call. Here are two expressions of that which have been included in the Rule of the Order of the Ascension.
Our vocation is not simply to be, but to work together with God in the creation of our own life, our own identity, our own destiny-to work out our own identity in God, which the Bible calls 'working out salvation " is a labor which requires sacrifice and anguish, risk and many tears. Thomas Merton
For stability means that I must not run away from where my battles are being fought, that I have to stand still where the real issues have to be faced. Obedience compels me to re- enact in my own life that submission of Christ himself, even though it may lead to suffering and death, and conversatio, openness, means that I must be ready to pick myself up, and start .all over again in a pattern of growth which will not end until the day of my final dying. And all the time the journey is based on that Gospel paradox of losing life and finding it. ..my goal is Christ. Esther deWaal
For some of us, maybe part of all of us, the current efforts to stay connected will be Merton’s “vocation …to work together with God” and to faithfully live in stability, obedience and conversion of life. And for some of us, maybe part of all of us, it will be fleeing that good work; because that good work involves “sacrifice, risk and many tears.”
Nouwen’s movements of the spiritual life
I’ve found the work of Henri Nouwen helpful in understanding that good work. He thought that our loneliness naturally evolved toward hostility, and that in turn toward illusion. It was a pathway away from our true life into bitter isolation, resentment, and self-deception. And the starting place into the pathway of grace was solitude. It was to choose and nurture solitude because that carried us into hospitality and reality.
Long before social distancing, stay-at-home orders, and quarantine Nouwen saw the way in which our loneliness could lead us to flee ourselves and look to others to fill a need they couldn’t possibly fill.
When our loneliness drives us away from ourselves into the arms of our companions in life, we are, in fact, driving ourselves into excruciating relationships, tiring friendships and suffocating embraces. To wait for moments or places where no pain exists, no separation is felt and where all human restlessness has turned into inner peace is waiting for a dreamworld. No friend or lover, no husband or wife, no community or commune will be able to put to rest our deepest cravings for unity and wholeness. Henri Nouwan
Our task is two-fold. We are to ground that longing in adoration, awe, thanksgiving, oblation and praise. Secondly, we are to manage that longing within its spiritual polarity. We seek unity and we seek differentiation; we seek harmony and we seek uniqueness; we seek to be connected with others and we seek a true self. Nouwen believed we needed to learn how to enter into solitude. The longing for connection could only be truly fruitful if rooted in solitude.
You may find it useful to read these resources on the spiritual life before continuing
A PDF - Nouwen’s polarities of the spiritual life
Three Movements of the Spiritual Life – a blog posting
From Loneliness to Solitude – a blog posting
A PDF - Three Movements of the Spiritual Life - A Parish Assessment
It is right that we address the longing for community as best we can with opportunities for some form of connection, however partial and weak. It is right that we be the church, and do church, as best we can in these times. And the poverty of what we do needs to be accepted with humility and patience. What we do can be strengthened as we attend to the need for solitude as we pursue our longing for community.
We can be confused and act wrongly when driven by our loneliness; when we haven’t turned that energy into adoration and awe; when we haven’t given ourselves to solitude. The task isn’t to spend time bemoaning our failure. The task is to turn into the pathways of grace; the pathways of Christ.
To live a spiritual life we must first find the courage to enter into the desert of our loneliness and to change it by gentle and persistent efforts into a garden of solitude. The movement from loneliness to solitude, however, is the beginning of any spiritual life because it is the movement from the restless senses to the restful spirit, from the outward-reaching cravings to the inward-reaching search, from the fearful clinging to the fearless play. Henri Nouwan
As the plague continues and the enemy again and again invites us into loneliness’s restlessness, fear and resentment, we will need to find that courage, gentleness and persistence.
What can we do?
Understand the spiritual struggle you are in. Notice the moments when fear and anger take hold. Notice the frustration and entitlement when what you want from others does come. And also notice the times of inner peace and joy. I knew the first when walking on California Avenue yesterday and a mentally ill man came closer and closer violating the six feet rule. And I knew the second when another older man out for his walk looked across the distance and said “good morning.”
Spend time each day in adoration and open to awe. That may be by saying the Daily office on your own or with others at a distance or by acts of spiritual communion. I say Morning Prayer with coffee by 7:30 and join in the parish’s practice of common Noon Prayers using that day’s form emailed by the rector.
Engage in some activity each day that feeds a restful spirit and the inner life. It may be creating art or knitting a quilt. For others washing the dishes or painting a room. For me it’s taking a walk or listening to music.
Add your own things to do that are acts of solitude.
rag+
Postings on the inner life and the virus
You know, and they know, that they are offering their lives
God's not indifferent to our pain
Becoming an Associate of a Religious Order
Spiritual vitality and authenticity
Faith to perceive: In your great compassion
Turn everything that happens to account
Postings on Parish Development during the Virus
Power from the center pervades the whole