[[Sister Laurel, I have been reading a hermit who calls and refers to him/herself as "nothing" and who strives more and more to be nothing. This makes the writing sort of hard to read and confusing because sometimes she/he is speaking of him/herself and sometimes referring to the lack of something, but I wondered about how valid such an approach to spirituality is. Should I be striving to be nothing, to lose myself completely if I want to be a hermit? If this is essential I am not sure how to even begin. Can you help me?]]
First, I would recommend you speak to your spiritual director about all of this and get his or her perspective on it. However, I can offer you my own view of such an approach. It is, in my estimation not the most effective approach to spiritual growth and can be seriously counterproductive. It seems to me that it is far better to work to become God's own in everything we do and are rather than to become "nothing." It is a fact that apart from God we are nothing at all anyway. And yet with God and in light of God's adoptive love, we take on very significant and precious identities which should not be minimized even as they challenge us to more. The task set before us by God is, with God's grace, to become fully human in covenant with Him, and therefore fully God's own; I think that keeping this uppermost in mind and in our hearts is far and away a better approach.
One of the problems I have with referring to oneself as "nothing" then, especially if one is a Christian, is that it is simply not true. We are adopted daughters and sons of God, heirs to God's kingdom and those who are charged with allowing it to come definitively. We are a new creation, made new in Christ and so, partial answers (or, perhaps better put, privileged witnesses to God's answer) to the world's domination by sin and death and to that same world's greatest hungers and yearnings. We are light and hope to that world and a sign of its greatest potential. So, while apart from God we are and can do nothing, as baptized heirs of God we are far from that. Humility, remember, is a form of loving truthfulness, not a form of denigration or self-loathing based on a partial and distorting datum --- no matter how subtle those are.
A second problem I have with referring to oneself as "nothing" then has to do with the fact that doing so cripples us and focuses our attentions and energies on deficiency rather than on potential and giftedness. Our world is not served in this way, nor, I think, does it help us to marshal the energy and talents necessary to serve the world by focusing on our complete inadequacy or deficiency. This is especially true in a world where people suffer either from a lack of self-esteem on one end of the spectrum or narcissism on the other. Reflecting the identity which is wholly a gift of God and the deepest truth of who we are empowers us to avoid either of these extremes and will assist us to empower others to do the same. I personally find nothing inspiring in a way of identifying oneself which views oneself in such negative terms and calls others to adopt the same mindset. There is nothing which says "Good news" to me in this.
One of the problems I have with referring to oneself as "nothing" then, especially if one is a Christian, is that it is simply not true. We are adopted daughters and sons of God, heirs to God's kingdom and those who are charged with allowing it to come definitively. We are a new creation, made new in Christ and so, partial answers (or, perhaps better put, privileged witnesses to God's answer) to the world's domination by sin and death and to that same world's greatest hungers and yearnings. We are light and hope to that world and a sign of its greatest potential. So, while apart from God we are and can do nothing, as baptized heirs of God we are far from that. Humility, remember, is a form of loving truthfulness, not a form of denigration or self-loathing based on a partial and distorting datum --- no matter how subtle those are.
A second problem I have with referring to oneself as "nothing" then has to do with the fact that doing so cripples us and focuses our attentions and energies on deficiency rather than on potential and giftedness. Our world is not served in this way, nor, I think, does it help us to marshal the energy and talents necessary to serve the world by focusing on our complete inadequacy or deficiency. This is especially true in a world where people suffer either from a lack of self-esteem on one end of the spectrum or narcissism on the other. Reflecting the identity which is wholly a gift of God and the deepest truth of who we are empowers us to avoid either of these extremes and will assist us to empower others to do the same. I personally find nothing inspiring in a way of identifying oneself which views oneself in such negative terms and calls others to adopt the same mindset. There is nothing which says "Good news" to me in this.
A third problem then is that because such an approach focuses us away from who and what we are in light of God, it also turns our focus away from God's own grace and "valuation" of us, and therefore away from an attitude of gratitude which is the very heart of Christian existence and prayer. If the summit of Catholic Sacramental life is the Eucharist (thanksgiving), then the summit of spiritual life is a correlative gratitude for God, his creation, and all he has done for and with us. Naming and referring to ourselves publicly as "nothing" is certainly not this. I would argue that neither is it truly humble; it misses the fact that true humility is a form of loving honesty about who we are in God. True humility recognizes both our poverty and our giftedness but it is grounded (humus) in the grace and love of God.
You asked if you should be seeking to lose yourself completely. The answer is no. While this MAY be good Buddhism (and I am not even sure this is the case), etc, it is not good Christianity. Christian monastic life recognizes the ambiguity of human life this side of death and thus speaks of a true and a false self. We are indeed called upon to find ways to enhance the true self through the grace of God, and to allow the false self to be stripped away or, where possible, to be made true by God's love, but this is not the same as losing oneself completely. Instead it is what the scriptures refer to as finding oneself and coming to abundant life in Christ. Again, my own approach to living an eremitical life involves living so that I am wholly God's own, not so that I am nothing at all. It is a challenging task which definitely involves the stripping away of distortions, falseness, darkness, sin and death, but all of this is the means to an end --- that is, to a selfhood which witnesses to God's great goodness and is of almost infinite worth to God and to the world he seeks to bring to fullness. In worldly terms I am not much, but in terms of God's own call I am much much more than "nothing." So are we all called to be.
I hope this is helpful, but again, speak to your own director to help augment this perspective with references to saints who have adopted the language of "nothingness" and the historical circumstances and approaches to spirituality which promoted such. I think you will find they never thought of themselves as merely "nothing" and did not allow such language to wholly overshadow their sense of self, especially in terms of their giftedness in God and value to him.
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