Glory of Solitude
The
world has become precariously chaotic. It is easy to be wafted by this chaos
but to creatively confront it a deliberate seclusion is necessary to return
with deeper conviction and greater impetus. Solitude is the refusal to succumb
to the incognizance of the world. Momentum demands withdrawal; a withdrawal
which is ephemeral. We withdraw not because we fear but to never fear again. Solitude
is such a withdrawal with a noble motive to know ourselves deeper; to know our
fragility, strength, weakness, vulnerability, fear, emotional stability etc.
Solitude is a battle with the self to realize our basic being. It is in
solitude that the true nature of a person springs. As a deacon I would further
say that a cleric is neither known through his Liturgy nor his speeches but
through his casual conversations and in his solitude. My constant prayer is “God
may the vestments adorn my heart; not my body.”
People
naively think that solitude and loneliness are the same which is false. Kim
Haines reminds us that “solitude is being alone while loneliness is feeling
alone.” Solitude is more existential while loneliness is more of abstraction. Poet
Marianne Moore has even argued that “the cure for loneliness is solitude.”[1] Paul
Tillich further remarks; “Language has created the word ‘loneliness to express
the pain of being alone. And it has created the word ‘solitude’ to express the
glory of being alone.” The concept of solitude becomes really elusive when it
needs to be explained. For this reason few would find the vocation of Desert
Fathers and Mothers, the hermits, to be labyrinth. People might even look upon
asceticism with suspicion as to what kind of vocation is this wherein one
refuses the pleasure of sexual intimacy; the bliss of a constant companion; the
liberty to be disoriented, the craving of delicacies; the severing of
consanguine family ties and many more common existential precepts. Monks are
the ones who appropriate an extended version of family. Metropolitan Emilianos Timiadis of Sylibria
argues;
Monks practice poverty not
because the administration of wealth is an evil in itself – if this were so,
how could Christ have worked as a carpenter? – but on the contrary because the
existence in society of a group of devoted men and women, who have freely given
up the right to possess wealth, may help others in that society to escape from
a life which makes the acquisition of wealth its supreme end. Monks are called
to celibacy, not to despise conjugal life or marriage but on the contrary to
give a witness to the transfiguration of the sexual instinct in marriage and in
celibacy so that people can serve higher goals and become servants of the
spirit. Monks are called to obedience, not in order to escape their
responsibilities of adulthood but in order to help man escape the instinct of
self-centeredness and self-dependence so that he increasingly depends on the
will of God and less and less on his own.[2]
Solitude
is a spiritual mandate and spirituality is not altogether a different realm but
it permeates our everyday lives. When we separate spirituality and secularity the
former loses its depth and the latter its fragrance. Naom Chomsky once said; “The
general population doesn’t know what is happening, and it doesn’t even know
that it doesn’t know.” Solitude is an effort to acknowledge that we are unaware
and the importance of being all the more aware. In solitude we are enlightened
by the fact that our essential being is selfless and communitarian and not
narcissistic. We do realize that our emotions are correlated and our well-being
depends on the well-being of our fellow brothers and sisters. Prayer,
celebration, fellowship, worship are no longer individual enclosures but the
visible expressions of our social accountability rooted in the kenotic love of
Christ. Solitude is our consent to God to teach us in a more radical pedagogy.
Some people find that in their
first experiences of solitude and silence they wrestle with frightful emotions
and fantasies. Some dark void in them beckons them to jump over the edge. It
does not take long to realize why we avoid ourselves. If you stay with
solitude, you discover that this inner void is your friend. It is your true
hunger. It has God’s name on it.[3]
Your
greatest enemy in solitude is you yourself. The demons you need to wrestle with
are your own speculations and apprehensions. There is a constant conflict
between the mind and the heart. Antony of Egypt, who spent a lifetime in the
solitude of the Egyptian desert, said: “For the one who wishes to live in solitude
there is only one conflict and that is with the heart.” Your thoughts disobey
you; your body purposely grows weary to deter you and your weakness comes to
the forefront to shame you. Solitude is really painful. But we need to bear in
mind what Kahlil Gibran said; “Your pain is the breaking of the shell that
encloses your understanding. It is the bitter potion by which the physician
within you heals your sick self. Therefore, trust the physician and drink his
remedy in silence and tranquillity.” Life in solitude is strenuous but Jesus
could have never been Christ had he not undergone the pain of solitude.
Athanasius has structured the solitude of Antony of Egypt in three steps viz.
anachoresis, askesis and agape.
Anachoresis, which can be translated roughly
as “withdrawal” refers to Antony's initial sense of call (his grounding
religious experience) and his response to that call (his withdrawal into the
desert). Askesis, which can be
translated as “training” refers to the long years of arduous struggle with the
demons that Antony is said to have endured in the solitude of the desert. Agape, or love, refers to that moment in
Antony's story when, after long years of solitary struggle, he emerges from
solitude to embrace the human community again and is experienced by that
community as a powerful healing presence. This is the basic structure of
Antony’s story as told by Athanasius.[4]
Lent
is a time to bear the pain of solitude. Celibate priests and monks are the ones
more prone to this pain. Dishearteningly in many churches including my own, many
of the priests who embrace celibacy anticipate of being consecrated as a Bishop
and when their anticipation turns out to be wrong they get cranky and sully
their vocation of priesthood. Celibacy is a unique vocation and not a mere
precursor of episcopacy. The veracity of the celibacy of celibate priests would
truly be known by the decision they make if the church tomorrow makes a
congenial change in its canon law that priests may marry even after acquiring
priesthood and that the bishops need not be celibates. Let’s then see how many
of them remain celibates and monks. I conclude with the words of Bishop
Hilarion (Alfeyev);
The call to monasticism is, above
all, a vocation for solitude, a love for worship, for prayer. If a person takes
monasticism for something else, then he will not stand the burden of
loneliness. You cannot become a monk just because you did not find a suitable
bride. You cannot accept monasticism solely because it was blessed by the elder
or confessor, without a heartfelt desire for inner prayer life.[5] Amen
Prayers
Dn.
Basil Paul
[2] Metropolitan
Emilianos Timiadis, “The Missionary Dimension of Monasticism” in Ion Bria
ed. Martyria/Mission: The Witness of the Orthodox Churches Today (Geneva:
World Council of Churches, 1980), 43.
[4]
Douglas Burton – Christie, “The Work of Loneliness: Solitude, Emptiness and
Compassion” in Anglican Theological
Review 88/1, 2006, 31.
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