You are currently browsing the category archive for the ‘Solitude’ category.
“The devout Christian of the future will either be a ‘mystic’ … or he will cease to be anything at all.”
Karl Rahner
+ + +
Have you ever asked yourself how Jesus might have experienced life, and faith, and His relationship with The Father?
Our life is more a question of fully experiencing the human and hence divine experience of being a human being than anything else.
Yes, our completion and fullness relies on the full experience of human experience for in that our gift is made for completion – for a joining of mortal and immortal reality.
We are made to know fully – from Aplha to Omega. In this we enter the Mystery. There is: Truth, identity and relationship with God and all others, all things. Therein is contentment, peace, traquility and the absence of fear and doubt, and uncertainty, anger and hostility. Therein is love – the all surpassing love that is of God, that is God.
But alas, we do not see and opt to divide one from another. The lesser among us divide so as to control, claim authority, impose narrow views that they alone conjure up or acquire from some favortite figure whose wandering defied God. Marx comes to mind.
In lesser “gods” is foolishness, conflict, ignorance and illness.
The land is littered with those who foolishly chose ideology over God and doing so they close the mind and heart, and alter all opportunity for wisdom, faith, tranquility, peace, truth, compassion, humility, understanding, the experience of human experience – and the transcendence that is available to all.
Yes, we are an odd lot – given fullness, we seek division and hostility.
It is far better to know how to know than be told what to know. It is far better to know how to see than be told what to see. This is the difference between the curse of ideologues and Christ, between the rote “believer,” and one who believes because he sees and knows from the experience God in the experience of human experience.
When we settle into division – the proclaimation of “me,” “me vs. them,” “us vs. the others” we are the antithesis of fullness in being, we are less than we are made to be, blinded not sighted. You see we are of the Whole, nothing less.
Shalom.
Life demands for its completion and fulfillment a balance between joy and sorrow. But because suffering is … disagreeable, people naturally prefer not to ponder how much fear and sorrow fall to the lot of man. So they speak … about progress and the greatest possible happiness, forgetting happiness … is poisoned if the measure of suffering has not been fulfilled.
Carl Jung, M.D., in Psychotherapy and a Philosophy of Life (Collected Works, Vol. 16)
+ + +
Where are the adults and wisdom figures today? Not in politics. Not in higher education. Not in media. Not in journalism. Not in public life. Not in the law. Surely not in the established bureaucracies of the government. And most assuredly not in entertainment. Not among the Leftists and the whining ideologues, nor among the “professional” advocacy class and the liberals on television or the products of “identity politics.”
Nope, we are short of mature, wise adults.
In large measure this is due to having few people with honestly examined lives. Few who are familiar with human psychology, philosophy, the history of Western Civilization or history itself, few familiar with the Classics of literature, and fewer still who are spiritually developed and hence engaged in faith and guided by a religious narrative.
Super-power notwithstanding, a nation does not survive that is not populated with those who are broadly educated and are humbled by a life in which both joy and sorrow have been experienced.
When I look at the assembled collection of Democrat presidential aspirants I think only of this – “what a motley crew!” Not a one to whom I’d feel comfortable giving a sharpened pencil. Likewise, I prefer not to give attention to anyone in journalism – such is the state of that enterprise today.
So where does this leave one? To the task of independent self-education – becoming familiar with a range of disciplines that instruct as to the collected understanding of the human person for good and ill. And from this base – to the individual life lived to experience and know both joy and sorrow … which renders us sober, grateful, insightful, steady, humble, wise, courageous, faithful and joy-filled.
Alas the miss-mash we see in the nonsense of a secular society stripped of wisdom and insight ought to call us back to common sense, more silence than chatter, and quiet application of life dedicated to proper education and conduct now simply honored in their abandonment.
Shalom.
It is living in the naked moment, the “sacrament of the present moment,” that will teach us how to actually experience our experiences, whether good, bad, or ugly, and how to let them transform us. Words by themselves will invariably divide the moment; pure present lets it be what it is, as it is.
Richard Rohr, in The Naked Now
+ + +
There are many things in our present culture that day by day, hour by hour keep us from the full experience of the human experience. Yes, words can distract and the voices of ideologues always do damage – as do the torrent of visual images present in our lives and relentless intrusion of technology and all things digital taken to extremes.
Life is far simpler. Not all meals need be excessive indulgences that morph us into shapes and sizes heretofore not known in human history.
Fix you eye, and heart and mind on the experience of human experience as known throughout the ages by mystics and peasants alike. Stay in the moment, beware of all the yesterdays in your life and in time that hath come before us … yes, those moments long before your mortal birth and all that awaits you beyond this mortal life … be at peace – angelic peace prevails and sits above all that is digression and divisive, alienating and destructive of self and others.
Shalom.
3:03 a.m. – how nice it is to awake in the full night of silence to think about faith
# # #
Faith is a backward-looking virtue. It concerns who we are … “the mystical chords of memory.”
Deirdre N. McCloskey, in The Bourgeois Virtues
+ + +
In faith you are connected with those who have come before you – with a stream of being that reaches to the very distant past, the sacrifice of others, their fidelity. Their story is our story.
In faith we belong to others – to Saint Peter and Saint John – to Abraham and Martha and Mary and Lazarus … to Aquinas, St. Augustine, to Simon of Cyrene, the men on the road to Emmaus – to centuries of faithful Jews and Christians.
In faith we have identity … a place in a long story that has no end.
In a world too often focused on the immediate, the immaterial, on desire, immersed in anxiety, loneliness, doubt and worry – we have in faith: certainty, confidence, cause, connection, and a call to life.
In faith we have as Aristotle says “another self,” – in faith is solidarity and union with one another now, in the past and in what is to come. In faith we know love – a love that runs to what has come before, what is now, and what will be in all the tomorrows yet to come.
In faith, particular differences do not matter for the faith others possess is the faith we possess. Ethnicity, race, age, social status, wealth and such do not matter to those who share a faith.
The broad identity of faith is the union of belief. We are, in faith, what we believe. Therein is our solace, our identity, our purpose, our meaning, our stability and our happiness.
Shalom.
1:05 a.m. – an early morning post … writing is like that … especially when you wonder about God and your relationship with Him … Ash Wednesday, March 6, 2019.
# # #
Holiness consist in simply doing God’s will, and being just what God wants you to be.
St. Therese de Lisieux
+ + +
The world today is a very troubling place. I often feel overwhelmed by the division and hatred on display here. For me, it is hard to comprehend why others choose to be so selfish, so lacking in patience and humility – so prone to anger and assertion, antagonism, hostility and discontent.
Yes, I ask myself: what is it to be holy in the world that surrounds me? In the chaos, I ask – what can I do to live a holy life day in and day out? How can I sustain a witness for Christ? Find daily contentment? Be in regular relationship with God?
How can I be holy amid the chaos and evil I see, I hear each day?
I believe St. Therese has supplied the answer. We maintain holiness in the world we find today my doing God’s will … by being who God made us to be.
The irony follows. It is NOT our job to change the slant of the axis of the world in order to be holy. No, it is something far simpler that is requires of us, something more fundamental – more intimate, more personal and it is this: do God’s will and be who God made you to be. It is this which provides the access to holiness in a chaotic and godless hour we now occupy.
Do His will and be who he made you to be. This is the path to holiness today and always.
Shalom.
Writing at 3:11 a.m. – writing in silence and at night. It is just like being … yes, it is being – just being … This is what is intended for us.
# # #
Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter, and those who matter don’t mind …
Anonymous
+ + +
Be. Just be.
Seems so simple, but so rare.
Imagine being cheated out of being, out of being you – God makes one-of-a-kind in each of us. No carbon copies. Why do we miss something so obvious? Such a simple truth … so easily lost.
In the dark and silent night I am. It reminds me of my time in monastic living … of the silence … of the holy nature of that silence which said without words – “you are, just be.”
In that, I saw better – angles appeared, as did shadows, and light, shades of colors, open spaces, contours, nature’s contrasts. I heard better, too. I heard the sacred silence and the chirping of small birds, the wind and the vast emptiness of silence which is its own music.
In silence you are. You feel you. Know the quiet action within you – the movement of your heart and the sacred touch of your fingers, your hand.
If I were to give you one solid thing I have come to know at 73 it would be this: “you are, just be.” In this you would be you and life would quiet down.
In the end and fullness of time you are meant to be, to be who you are in that simple act of being. Then, it will come to you: you are as a monk is – you are … yes, you are. And He is near always and endlessly. This is the simple Truth of life: you are and He is.
3:32 a.m., Sunday Morning, 3 March 2019. The wind does not whisper its name tonight and it is dark and still. I am. He is. You are.
Shalom.
If … spiritual need is not appeased, it will take revenge in strange ways … A lot of compulsive behavior – drugs, sexual license, hyper-activity, work for work’s sake – can be means of escaping from this hunger.
Thomas Keating, in The Heart of the World
+ + +
We are spiritual beings. Our interior life exists. Often, it is neglected. Such is the nature of a demanding culture, a culture in which we are frequently engaged, locked in on exterior demands placed on us. We spend little time alone, in quiet, at rest – caring for our need for silence and solitude. Hence, we are at ill at ease.
Who among us takes time for quiet? For solitude? Silence?
Are not the addicted ill at ease? Who is at peace? Are you able to be quiet and at ease?
Caring for one’s interior is a need we have. Engaging your faith in silence and solitude provides a way to tranquility and contentment – a respite from all that is demanded of you, all that keeps you engaged and without a pause, without quiet, without peace.
Shalom.
In our time we should emphasize what unites rather than what divides.
Pope John XXIII
+ + +
These are the words of Pope John XXIII on his death-bed. I cite them today because they fit so well the circumstances we face now.
There is great division in this land. It seems as if people desire that we be divided, fragmented, at odds with one another … divided and separated from God and faith, self and one another. Today hostility is heightened and friendship diminished.
This brings me to my long-term concern with how one lives one’s faith in a secular culture – now that one is apt to be estranged from spiritual existence in a culture that manifests so much discontent, anger and self-destruction.
My own course has been an attempt to understand both God and culture. To look at our history as a nation and Western Civilization, to see the challenges we face, review our failures and our successes, look closely at our psychological health and development and our nature as spiritual beings.
It follows that my reading encompasses history, philosophy, psychology, theology, mythology, literature and the like. But my inquiry has also experienced and thought about monastics and their ability to live faith and grow spiritually and as healthy humans notwithstanding the shape of the world over many centuries.
What I have come to understand is this: (1) if you wish to live your faith and do so deeply, you need to know how a culture can deter you from faith and your spiritual development, and (2) in seeking to live your faith in a secularized culture, you would be wise to learn from the monastic experience for it has over many years allowed men and women to grow spiritually and in contentment through their separation from the culture at-large, their silence, solitude, study and simple life style.
I might add that if you wish to assist others in finding faith in secular culture it becomes necessary to identify those things in culture which make a healthy spiritual existence quite difficult and those things which incline to foreclose one’s spiritual development and ultimate peace and contentment that daily living of one’s faith allows.
In short, what I am saying is this – to live faith in secular culture – you do well to take an informed assessment of the culture, become familiar with the nature of monastic existence and make use of its framework so you might exist within a secular culture while living fully in your faith. Yes, in this you will be living at an arm’s length or more from the present culture as it is endlessly extended to you in a mass communication and the highly visualized and extensively noisy storm of images and words.
In practical terms it is wise to adopt a monastic disposition in an intrusive secularized culture.
Shalom.
Postscript – In the 1950’s we held the Communists in check when they invaded Korea, would we do less in facing them in our own country?
Spirlaw 