Solitude

Solitude as act: the reason no one understands solitude, or bothers to try to understand it, is that it appears to be nothing but a condition. Something one elects to undergo, like standing under a cold shower. Actually, solitude is a realization, an actualization, even a kind of creation, as well as a liberation of active forces within us, forces that are more than our own, and yet more ours that what appears to be "ours". As a mere condition, solitude can be passive, inert and basically unreal: a kind of permanent coma. One has to work at it to keep out of this condition. One has to work actively at solitude, not by putting fences around oneself but by destroying all the fences and throwing away all the disguises and getting down to the naked root of one's inmost desire, which is the desire of liberty-reality. To be free from the illusion that reality creates when one is out of right relation to it, and to be real in the freedom which reality gives when one is rightly related to it.

Thomas Merton. Learning to Love, Journals Volume 6

Not My Own Salvation

[In the last analysis what I am looking for in solitude is not happiness or fulfillment but salvation. Not "my own salvation" but the salvation of everybody. Here is where the game gets serious. I have used the word revolt in connection with solitude. Revolt against what? Against a notion of salvation that is entirely legal and extrinsic and can be achieved no matter how false, no matter how shriveled and fruitless one's inner life really is. This is the worst ambiguity: the impression that one can be grossly unfaithful to life, to experience, to love, to other people, to one's own deepest self, and yet be "saved" by an act of stubborn conformity, by the will to be correct. In the end this seems to me to be fatally like the act by which one is lost: the determination to be "right" at all costs, by dint of hardening one's core around an arbitrary choice of a fixed position. To close in on one's central wrongness with the refusal to admit that it might be wrong. . . I am here [in solitude and in the hermitage] for one thing: to be open, to be not "closed in" on any one choice to the exclusion of all others: to be open to God's will and freedom to His love, which comes to save me from all in myself that resists Him and says no to Him. This I must do not to justify myself, not to be right, not to be good, but because the whole world of lost people needs this opening by which salvation can get into it through me.

Thomas Merton
Learning to Love

 

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The big reasons for solitude: the true perspectives- leaving the "world"-even the monastic world with its business, vanities, superficiality. More and more I see the necessity of leaving my own ridiculous "career" as a religious journalist. Stop writing for publication- except poems and creative meditations.

Solitude-witness to Christ-emptiness.

Thomas Merton
A Search for Solitude

 

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The Best Way to Self-Knowledge

Solitude, silence, and prayer are often the best ways to self-knowledge.
Not because they offer solutions for the complexity of our lives but because they bring us in touch with our sacred center, where God dwells.
That sacred center may not be analysed.
It is the place of adoration, thanksgiving, and praise.

Henri Nouwen

Silence

The trees, the flowers, the plants grow in silence.

The stars, the sun, the moon move in silence.

Silence gives us a new perspective.
Blessed Mother Teresa

The Still, Small Voice of Love

Many voices ask for our attention.
There is a voice that says,

"Prove that you are a good person."

Another voice says,

"You'd better be ashamed of yourself."

There also is a voice that says,

"Nobody really cares about you,"

and one that says,

"Be sure to become successful, popular, and powerful."

But underneath all these often very noisy voices is a still, small voice that says,

"You are my Beloved, my favor rests on you."

That's the voice we need most of all to hear.
To hear that voice, however, requires special effort; it requires solitude, silence, and a strong determination to listen.

That's what prayer is.
It is listening to the voice that calls us

"my Beloved."

Henry Nouwen

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The Voice in the Garden of Solitude

Solitude is the garden for our hearts, which yearn for love.
It is the place where our aloneness can bear fruit.
It is the home for our restless bodies and anxious minds.
Solitude, whether it is connected with a physical space or not, is essential for our spiritual lives.
It is not an easy place to be, since we are so insecure and fearful that we are easily distracted by whatever promises immediate satisfaction.
Solitude is not immediately satisfying, because in solitude we meet our demons, our addictions, our feelings of lust and anger, and our immense need for recognition and approval.
But if we do not run away, we will meet there also the One who says, "Do not be afraid. I am with you, and I will guide you through the valley of darkness."

Let's keep returning to our solitude.

-- Henri Nouwen

Finding Solitude

All human beings are alone.
No other person will completely feel like we do, think like we do, act like we do.
Each of us is unique, and our aloneness is the other side of our uniqueness.
The question is whether we let our aloneness become loneliness or whether we allow it to lead us into solitude.
Loneliness is painful; solitude is peaceful.
Loneliness makes us cling to others in desperation; solitude allows us to respect others in their uniqueness and create community.

Letting our aloneness grow into solitude and not into loneliness is a lifelong struggle.
It requires conscious choices about whom to be with, what to study, how to pray, and when to ask for counsel.
But wise choices will help us to find the solitude where our hearts can grow in love.

-- Henri Nouwen

Focussing Our Minds and Hearts

How can we stay in solitude when we feel that deep urge to be distracted by people and events?
The most simple way is to focus our minds and hearts on a word or picture that reminds us of God.
By repeating quietly: "The Lord is my shepherd, there is nothing I shall want," or by gazing lovingly at an icon of Jesus, we can bring our restless minds to some rest and experience a gentle divine presence.
This doesn't happen overnight.
It asks a faithful practice.
But when we spend a few moments every day just being with God, our endless distractions will gradually disappear.

Clinging to God in Solitude

When we enter into solitude to be with God alone, we quickly discover how dependent we are.
Without the many distractions of our daily lives, we feel anxious and tense.
When nobody speaks to us, calls on us, or needs our help, we start feeling like nobodies.
Then we begin wondering whether we are useful, valuable, and significant.
Our tendency is to leave this fearful solitude quickly and get busy again to reassure ourselves that we are "somebodies."
But that is a temptation, because what makes us somebodies is not other people's responses to us but God's eternal love for us.

To claim the truth of ourselves we have to cling to our God in solitude as to the One who makes us who we are.

-- Henri Nouwen

Independent Thought

"Someone has to try to keep his head clear of static
and preserve the interior solitude and silence
that are essential for independent thought."

-- Thomas Merton,
Faith and Violence: Christian Teaching and Christian Practice

Solitude

Meditation means trusting the silence around me for a while, as if it were an answer I had long sought.