The religion in Christianity is all about
family, community and state. We need this religion to draw comfort when we need
to celebrate, and when we need to grief. The sharing of such that makes for
healing the wounds of life, and renewal of purpose in life. We need friends,
relatives, children and spouse. But we live in an imperfect world where our
church, family and social connectivity is less than ideal. There is no lack of
people who need to be comforted but to be the one to comfort must come from
inner vision that gives strength. To be able to distinguish our own strength
from our innate needs is important to grow spiritually. This maturity is only
possible when one comes to terms about the reality of the human condition, the
existential reality of the person, wherein lies the fathomable and the abyss,
the pain and the fear, and the coming to terms with the cessation of it all.
This is not earned in the noisy marketplace or in the bustle of life but in
solitude.
Solitude is a discipline that, I believe, is
central to Christian living. To me, this often painful withdrawal from everyday
demands of life has been the most meaningful aspect of Christian spirituality:
solitude to me is the journey back to God. It is a journey that one makes not
to live in the splendid beauty of the mountain top but to find inner strength
to descend back to the village and the business of living. Solitude is not an
ultimate goal, but a respite beside still waters.
To withdraw from society, the television and
the internet, is to withdraw from all those things that continuously bombard us
with cues that affirm our place in society, our sense of self worth, and our
identity. It is frightening at a visceral level. But it is also frightening at
a more intellectual level because the emotional reinforcement that the world
offers is ultimately an artificial construct. To tear away from that interface
is an experience in itself. But the question who are we? And for the Christian
who are we in relation to God?
the nature of our heart
The abject truth about our humanity is that
we are inherently alone and lonely. We think and all thought is evident of our
aloneness in our thoughts. We know for a fact that we are born without our will
and die against our will. All that we can possibly possess can never be ours.
They never were. And all that we think is what we are, the memory, the
ambition, the pride, the name by which we call ourselves, the education and
skill in us, the title, and the social status are all borrowed. Imputed by
others, given by others, for others, and are forever extrinsic to us. What is
mine can never be me. Unclothed, what is I is nothing. In our nakedness before
ourselves we are temporary and forever separated from all that surrounds us in
the physical world as well as in our mental world. Even our thoughts are not
for our keeping. And the realization that we are the possibly the only
intelligent being contemplating this extremely vast universe, that is harsh.
And as a result, we keep ourselves busy with unworthy things that we may not
recall or remember. But this pushes the loneliness of the soul into deeper and often
unendurable depths of unimportant things. I have not read Maurice Friedman but
this quote of his “The greatest mystery was not
that we have been flung at random among the profusion of the earth and the
galaxy of the stars, but that in this prison we can fashion images of ourselves
sufficiently powerful to deny our nothingness” is most succinct.
Where philosophy left off, religion picks up.
Religion seeks to give us an answer, by paraphrasing this struggle in
mythological frames. The Bible talks of a primordial state of man that is
neither temporal nor spatial but which subsists in all of us - an archetypical
garden in the centre of our being – the Eden where we live in complete
nakedness and in complete communion with God. No separation. The myth tells us
that the archetypical us fell so as to explore our identity and sought meaning
it did not please God and the angels thought that Adam has become like them!
God put Adam and Eve away from His presence. And God, put an emptiness in our
innermost place, our soul if you would, so that we will perpetually seek to return
to Eden.
our restless soul
Adam’s desire was not to live forever but to
know, to find meaning and live meaningfully. And it is this basic almost feral impulse
that drives us to succumb to whatever fiction the mind can grab and hold. Take
for example, our most basic drive, sex. Sexuality is the expression of desire
of one human being to be united with another human being. For both, ones who
can truly love, this can be an intense experience. Unknowing to the lovers, the
loneliness makes one love more the object of their love: a person. A separation
of lovers scratches that surface of loneliness and the fury and anxiety is
terrible. While romance, sex and love is permissible, elevated in poetry and
songs, we also have a tendency to place our desire in less worthy objects:
money, power, fame and all things to the aggrandizement of the singular fiction
of the universe: the meaningful life! This is sin, it is the darkness that lies
in the soul that blinds us to the knowledge of our eternal longing … for God!
But the darkness hides our terror and consequently hides us from God, too.
Are we then without salvation, for we are
never in Eden in our heart but forever longing? Of course, not. God tells us,
“Be still and know that I am God.” (Psalm 46:10) To ‘be still’ seems to be a
pre-requisite here the ‘to know.’ It is impossible to be still when our mind is
constantly responding to the environment because the habit not to ignore
stimuli is part of our survival instinct. That is why one needs the silence and
separation that comes with solitude to turn our attention from the outside
world to the inside reality – to look at what we are and acknowledge our
wretchedness.
silence and silent places
Celano writes of St. Francis that “he used
often to choose out solitary places in order that he might therein wholly
direct his mind to God.” Monks deliberately chose to cultivate this discipline
but it is a full-time occupation for them. In our ordinary mundane life, that
sort of withdrawal is a luxury we can seldom afford. How do we then seek
solitude that we may hear the “still small voice” (1 Kings 19:12) of God. It is
not the going into the woods that is important nor the commitment to a monastic
order that can help us to solitude but the withdrawal itself. The physical
removal of oneself from the noisy everyday life to a place to be with God
without undue influence is possible for the moderns. It is often described as
their “secret place to be alone with God.” I imagine it is a place or a sacred
hour set aside with no intrusions of chatter and clatter!
The deprivation of the sources of attention
means silence. Silence is essential for solitude. Richard Foster in his book Celebration
of Discipline, says that “without silence there is no solitude.” The
intention of the mind in solitude is to wrestle with God, grapple with our
soul, and to wait upon the Lord. It is a prayer in itself because we come
before God but it is not a prayer of utterance. The Psalmist tells us: “commune
with your own hearts on your bed and be silent”(Psalm 4:4). If we be not
silent, it is not that God will not talk to us but that there will be no opportunity
for us to hear Him right. He may come to us as in a thunder rolling over the
dark mountains but God’s voice can also waft in the breeze, who are we to tell
God how that He may speak to us. God did admonish Job, not so much for talking
too much but I believe for talking at all. In speech we are constantly
searching for meaning. In talking we are exercising our lust for meaning: “Give
heed, O Job, listen to me; be silent and I will speak.”(Job 33:31).
bereft of meaning in an arid land
What then of a person bereft of meaning in
their life, without a soul that is naked, wait upon the Lord? The contemplative
aspect of solitude very often leads to two very dramatic turns. One for which I
dare not lay claim is the overwhelming mystical experience; and the other is
what St. John of the Cross calls the “dark night of the soul.” Whatever the
outcome, the truth seems that when people take their discontent with existence before
God, they are answered. Such answers seems to come as gift: an alarming glimpse
of a part of God’s glory. Such was the grace of God when He spoke to Job. Such
was the grace of God when Peter, James, and John saw Jesus transfigured
(Matthew 17:1-9). In the chronicles of mystics, right through the ages, there
is visions and voices of God that bestow
grace.
But the Bible also says that man shall not
see God and live. (Exodus 33:20) Whether this means that one’s sinfulness
destroys them before God’s holiness or that that one will see God and not want
to live anymore. But then when one’s soul is so completely cleansed of the
world and its worldliness, what is there to come before a majesty so divine and
surrender to its reality and its incomprehensible purpose – a tumultuous soul
finds peace!
For someone lesser I am often thrilled by the
wisdom of great minds but as I grow up I realized that all truths can be pared
down. And truth when stripped off its clothing soon become terrible to behold
for there is nothing in this world that can give me there is a single atom of
meaningfulness. Detachment and distrust of all things of this world is a phase
in solitude. It is a crippling sense of loss that comes with the realization
that one is thirsty for living water but the frightened soul is an arid land.
will you keep faith
In moments like these, God does seem far off
and aloof to entreaties and prayers. One questions grace itself: “What purpose
is His grace that I live?” or “Why do I even need to keep my sanity?” But St.
John of the Cross, one who have gone before us on this path have this to
counsel: “dense and burdensome cloud which afflicts the should” will be lifted
up. It will be like God himself is saying: “Even if I do not shine upon you,
will you keep faith?” The test is sore. Richard Foster says, “God is lovingly
drawing you away from every distraction so that you can see him clearly.” But
the heart becomes heavy until one realizes that the love one has for God is
nothing but a reflection of one’s own need. When one denies the needs there
descends a shadow upon one’s countenance of a loss, an overwhelming sense of a
God gone absent. An empty house. The beloved is dead and I have missed the
funeral. This is dark night when God’s love has to be discovered for its own
sake, and the person comes into a another kind of relationship with God for
which there is no metaphor or parable. Hebrews 11:6b has a subtle nuance “And without faith it is impossible to please him. For whoever would draw
near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.”
The reward is a veil behind which God must be lest man stretches out and gains
Him by his own effort … and that God is no God at all.
The wanderer must now return home to tend to his garden and cook in his
kitchen. Savour the day and contemplate the beauty of the tree that grows in
his yard. Paul
wrote: “God who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in
our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of glory of God, in the face of
Christ Jesus.” (2 Corinthians 4:6) It is at this moment when He is “my mother,
my father, my Teacher, my God, my all.” I shall not want. Seek, and you will
find it. The Lord is my portion, says my soul, therefore I will hope in Him.
(Matthew 7:7, Psalms 23:1; Lamentations 3:24)
what is solitude
Solitude as a discipline transforms the
seeker in essentially two ways: it creates a deep sense of detachment from the
things of this world; and a deep love for humanity. One mahatma of this order
is St. Francis of Assisi.
In confronting oneself in silent repose, a
complete honesty is necessary to tear away from the deceit of our self.
Self-denial is not an end in itself but it must germinate from the realization
that we are nothing first, and nothing at all before God. Our life, our love,
our children, our wealth, our thoughts, wisdom and creations, our
accomplishments, all decay in time and pass away even from memory. We never
owned this world and never will we. Even all the good things in life is loaned
to us. Such is what solitude teaches us when the transience of life presses
upon us.
Solitude leads us to deny all those things
that pretend to give us value to our self. And while it is initially
frightening, it sets us free. The choice in life is not chosen at all for all
things come from God and unto His own they return. (1 Chronicles 29:14b) Beauty
and ugly, rich and poor, prince and subject, wise and foolish, are all the way
of the world to which a free person takes no side, they are on God’s side. If
we know Jesus right he is inviting us to do just that.
To seek solitude comes with a precondition
that can determine a result. To the ungodly, the soul is quickly seduced by the
rage and arrogance. Solitude without the motive of love is the anathema of
mankind. It is evil. What shall a man seek without love but the glory of his
own sin. That man is not like God but to arrogate upon himself that he is God.
Instead of compelling him into a more meaningful relationship with life itself,
he fills his hollowness not with love but with rage. He is a man at war with
the world!
Solitude also brings us to an understanding that
on that day when God put an emptiness into the heart of mankind, He too lost a
bit of Himself in that separation. It is just not us who seek God but it is
also God who seeks us out. It is ultimately this that sets the agony of
separation and the desire for togetherness in the divine passion play of Jesus
Christ on the cross. But solitude is needed to burn away the dross of the soul
and all the figments of its imaginations, before God’s light can be seen, and
that we may know our rightful place in the universe.
To abide in the love of God (John 15:4ff) is
to be touched in our innermost to become instruments of his love, is to love
because it is God who loves, and to become not-I but all things that God loves.
And when we walk this earth with care, respect and responsibility for life
within the possibility of our self, we for that lifespan of time, do indeed
become united in an intimate way with the love that is of God. And how can we
lay it apart, this that is of God and God Himself, that is the intimacy of the
divine in our soul.
The fruits of that sort of soul is “joy,
peace, long-suffering, gentleness, goodness and faith.” (Galatians 5:22) It is
the gift for those who would sit the lonely nights before God and rub away a
little of the divide between oneself and God and be consciously, though
fleetingly, united in his will. The truth that such a person bears comes from
the emptiness of his soul into which God has poured treasures. And out of the
treasures of this heart shall come good fruits! (Luke 6:45a).
(1989)
(1989)
