Living the Questions: Journeying into the Shadows of Death, Despair, and Meaninglessness

[[Sister Laurel, in your piece on Hiddenness and witnessing to the journey to deeper union with God, you quoted Merton on journeying in the desert area of the human heart. I wonder if you could say more about that? I was especially interested in Merton's description that he has been called to explore places most people were not able to visit except in the company of one's psychologist, and that they studiously avoid except in their nightmares. Is this the way you understand your vocation? Can you say more about this? I also wondered what Merton meant by saying that one cannot truly know hope unless one has found out how like despair hope is. Do you understand that?]]

These are particularly good questions, and I appreciate you asking them. Merton's quote here is dense and incredibly significant. It corresponds to the inner journey made by many contemplatives and hermits, and yes, I think I can explain some dimensions of it based on my own experience. Let me quote the entire passage and then comment on it in terms of two things: 1) becoming Emmanuel (God with Us) as we allow God to be Emmanuel, and 2) learning to be one who "lives the questions". These are two of the ways I understand the nature of eremitical life. Merton's passage reads:

When I first became a monk, yes, I was more sure of  'answers'. But as I grow old in the monastic life and advance further into solitude, I become aware that I have only begun to seek the questions. And what are the questions? Can man make sense out of his existence? Can man honestly give his life meaning merely by adopting a certain set of explanations which pretend to tell him why the world began and where it will end, why there is evil and what is necessary for a good life? My brother, perhaps in my solitude I have become as it were an explorer for you, a searcher in realms which you are not able to visit --- except perhaps in the company of your psychologist. I have been summoned to explore a desert area of man's heart in which explanations no longer suffice, and in which one learns that only experience counts. An arid, rocky, dark land of the soul, sometimes illuminated by strange fires which men fear and peopled by specters which men studiously avoid except in their nightmares. And in this area, I have learned that one cannot truly know hope unless he has found out how like despair hope is.

Sinful human beings are profoundly (existentially) alone and threatened by death and meaninglessness. Moreover, because of sin, we also experience estrangement from God even when personal sin is not a particular problem. (We experience this estrangement as a yearning for both being and meaning. This means we are hungry for and seek an ever fuller existence that is full of value and purpose.) We are taught that our lives are meaningful and precious, that we are made in the image of God, and so, that we are called to union with God. We are taught by Scripture (cf. Romans 8:26ff) that nothing at all can separate us from the love of God, and that the hope we are called to live is rooted in the Christ Event and the death, resurrection, and ascension of Jesus. Every religion or theology class we may take or have taken throughout our lives, every homily we hear, every conversation we may have with spiritual directors, every book or article on the Gospel we have read, serves in some way to affirm the truth that God is the ground and source of our lives and that ultimately, we cannot be separated from him. This means God is the ground and source of every potentiality, every talent, and gift we have. Further, God transcends any threat to being or meaning we might experience. All of this also means that the anxiety associated with the fact that our lives are marked and marred by finitude and sin (separation from God as ground and source of being and meaning), though these are real and a source of suffering, can be transformed into the peace of God whenever God is allowed to be Emmanuel.

The fact that we are made by and for God also means that without God, we are incomplete. The ways sin, death, and meaninglessness threaten us are reminders of both our need and hunger for the God who completes and makes us whole and wholly or exhaustively alive. All of the ways we seek to give our lives purpose, fulfill them, seek meaning, and create representations of and reflections on these things testify both to what we are made for and what we yet lack. As human beings in search of a more exhaustive being and meaning, that is, as people seeking fullness of life in, with, and through God, we are like questions in search (and in need) of a completing and illuminating answer. Ironically, only once a question is paired with its truest answer can we truly see the full sense, depths, and significance of the question. Only when the answer is provided do we have a complete articulation of the truth. Similarly, it is only when we begin to have a sense of the answer that we find the courage to pose the question as radically as we really need and are called to do. And this is especially true with the question that we each are and the answer God represents.

It is in our hearts that we hear and struggle with the questions that are part of our being human and made for God. It is in the desert of the human heart that we know the questions that excite and propel us further towards transcendence and those that agonize us with apparent absurdity, loss, limitation, disappointment, contradiction, and crisis. It is in the human heart that we sin against others and, in the process, betray ourselves, those others, and our God as well. Here we make ourselves not just a question, but questionable. Here we battle with demons and seek out angels; here we embrace, then reject idols, and seek the real God even more intensely and profoundly. And in all of this struggle, seeking, and questioning, it is in the human heart that we pose the question of the truth of ourselves and of God, and eventually, that we can discover the union that exists deeper than any brokenness, distortion, or estrangement we might also know or have known.

Thomas Merton knew all of this very well, and as he journeyed more deeply into solitude, he did as every hermit is called to do and began to explore the desert of his own heart. Merton understood that most folks do not make this same journey as consistently or as profoundly as a monk or hermit is called to do. Such a journey is entirely too demanding, too painful, and in any case, everyday life and responsibilities prevent it. This is part of the reason eremitical vocations are seen as second-half-of-life vocations. They arise out of deeper questioning and seeking, out of a more profound posing of the question of self in conjunction with a relatively mature sense of the answer that (who) is God. Eremitism is embraced as a full-time commitment to seek and receive or be received by God, which also necessarily means posing the question of one's own existence as profoundly as one can while remaining open to the answer**. The question of God is not an abstract one. It is a deeply personal question requiring our entire commitment and the exploration of a whole life's experience. This is what canon 603 refers to as a life of assiduous prayer and penance. We approach this question existentially, understanding that the answer is something we must also come to know experientially. Dogma and doctrine, no matter how true and important they are, are not the answer our existence ultimately requires. Only God Godself is the true answer.

I believe that my vocation is about letting God love me as exhaustively as he wills to do. This means opening myself to and allowing God to be Emmanuel in the same way Jesus did, and doing so in Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. I believe another way of saying this and describing the self-emptying this requires is to define eremitical life as one of living the questions as deeply and exhaustively as I can. In my own experience, this involves journeying into the shadows of meaninglessness, near-despair, and death. Only the Holy Spirit, I believe, gives a person the power (courage) to make such a journey. Thus, Merton speaks of nightmares, or specters, that persons studiously avoid except, perhaps, when working with their psychologist (I would add "with one's spiritual director" here). To pose the question of oneself in all of the ways that question is raised throughout one's life, and to do so ever more profoundly, prepares us to receive God (or, more truly, to be received by God) as the answer. For that reason, it prepares us to receive the ground and source of all hope as well. I believe this is what Merton meant by saying how like despair hope really is. 

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** Here I am thinking of Jesus’ cry of abandonment on the cross. In this moment, Jesus posed the question he was as deeply as possible and remained open to allowing God to be the answer that He would be. On the cross of Christ, the human question (which is also the question of God!) is posed as radically as we will ever see it posed. At that moment, Jesus stood at the doorway of death, despair, and meaninglessness, and was open to God as the only adequate and completing answer. This openness is not assured in most of us, and we can struggle to "achieve" or allow it as our inner journey into the shadows and darkness deepens, but it is this openness or "obedience" that was key to (God's) transforming the cross into the very center of redemptive and revelatory history. I would not be surprised if Thomas Merton had been reflecting on the same event as well as his own profound experiences in solitude as he wrote what he did on the relation and likeness of despair and hope.

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I will need to reflect on and address this in further posts, but Merton's quotation, and my own understanding of the reason for this contemplative vocation to "live the questions," in the very heart of the Church is precisely so that the experience of God's sustaining love is witnessed to as the assured answer to the human question each of us is. Dogma and Doctrine proclaim this in many ways. The Scriptures witness to and proclaim this truth in the proclamation of a crucified Jesus' resurrection, and perhaps most powerfully in Paul's affirmation in Romans 8:31-39. Merton makes the point that sometimes this is simply not enough for those seeking being and meaning. Experience is necessary. I would also point out that the hermit makes this journey for the sake of others as well as herself, first for God's sake, then for the Church whose task is the mediation of this reality (Emmanuel) to the world, and finally, for the sake of all those whose existential questions require encouragement and, above all, a source of hope.

On the Question of Despair as Mortal Sin: Looking Again at Dimensions of my Journey into Existential Solitude

[[Sister Laurel, in your recent post, you seemed to be saying that God would be present even if one reached a point of despair and committed suicide. I thought despair was always a mortal sin, and it never occurred to me that Jesus had reached a point of despair because he never sinned. If you reached a point of despair, then didn't you also commit a mortal sin?]]

Thanks for your question. It is important to distinguish between the feeling of despair or hopelessness and the act of despairing or giving up all hope. We also need to be clear that we take seriously what the Church teaches today, and not only in the past regarding despair and suicide. Remember that the Church has always been explicit about the voluntary character of despair as a mortal sin. She said, essentially,  [[Despair (Latin desperare, to be hopeless) is ethically regarded as the voluntary and complete abandonment of all hope of saving one’s soul and of having the means required for that end. It is not a passive state of mind: on the contrary, it involves a positive act of the will by which a person deliberately gives over any expectation of ever reaching eternal life.]] 

This definition stands, and at the same the Church today has a greater sensitivity to the psychological conditions that can eventuate in acting out of despair. After all, most people who are truly despairing are so because they have been overwhelmed by circumstances and can no longer see clearly or act freely. They feel despair, which is not what the Church considers a sin. Remember that Par. 2282b  of the CCC reads as follows: [[Grave psychological disturbances, anguish, or grave fear of hardship, suffering, or torture can diminish the responsibility of the one committing suicide.]]

In relation to the post you reference, I am thinking of what the Church teaches about suicides here as she approaches, cautiously and prudently, the ultimately reassuring conclusion I wrote about in light of Jesus' cry of abandonment.  What I said was,  [[(Hermits) make this choice [to make this inner journey] so that they might experience genuine hope rooted in God and the Christ Event for the sake of God's Kingdom and Gospel. Doctrine, per se, while important, is not enough for the life of the Body of Christ. Interpretations of the cross by others are a critical start, but what is essential if one is to really witness to the truth of the Gospel to others, and bring them to genuine hope, is the truth of our own experience -- even, and perhaps especially when that experience is one of journeying into the shadow of death and despair or near-despair. Recently, I said to my director, "I would not wish this particular journey on anyone, and yet, what I have come to as a result of this very journey, I want for everyone!"  

In the Catechism of the Catholic Church (Par 2283), we also hear: [[We should not despair of the eternal salvation of persons who have taken their own lives. By ways known to him alone, God can provide for the opportunity for salutary repentance. The Church prays for those persons who have taken their own lives.]] While I was not suicidal in the personal journey I referred to in my earlier post, because of the nature of that journey and its roots in past trauma and the search for healing, it definitely happened in incredible anguish and the shadow of death and despair or "near-despair". My sense is that Jesus' journey to Golgotha and beyond took him beyond this experience of mine into godless death itself, and still he remained open to God. 

The words of the catechism's reassurance is rarely far from me: "In ways known to Godself alone. . .." These words apply to so many things that seem absurd, incomprehensible, or overwhelming to us! They were also consciously present to me some of the time during the journey I have referred to; at other times, I now believe, they were an unconscious and strengthening pedal tone that made the journey possible at all. Even more strongly with me was Paul's similar assurance from Romans 8:37-39: No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

In other words, I did not lose hope (though sometimes what I felt made it seem a very near thing indeed!). Instead, I both drew on hope and sought it out in a deliberate search for healing. The irony or paradox here is that faith and hope are required to undertake and engage in such a journey to the depths of darkness and hopelessness in search of God, of one's truest self, and for the greater faith, hope, and abundant life to which this leads. 

Another way of saying this is to affirm that such a journey requires the trust of faith and the courage of hope to look despair full in the face, experience the pain and anguish of that reality as it may have existed in one's past, grieve it, reconcile oneself with it, and find both God and one's deepest self in the process. As I understand it, this inner journey is an essential part of the hermit's asceticism and "dying to self," albeit the "false self" that so distorts and limits our true humanity. Again, I am grateful to God for inspiring this journey and for sustaining me (and those accompanying me in various ways) throughout it. As noted above, I would not wish this particular journey on anyone, and yet, what I have come to as a result of this very journey, I want for everyone! It was not anathema (a curse) but truly a blessing.

Why does the Church Need Hermits? On the Journey of Existential Solitude and Jesus' Cry of Abandonment

[[Hi Sister, is the inner journey you speak about under the name "existential solitude" frightening? Maybe that's a weird question, but you have said that everyone hesitates to undertake this journey even though it is necessary in order to be truly human. Why is this form of solitude so scary, or why do people want to avoid it? You also said, My sense is that Vatican II gave us a more robust access to Scripture and to a Jesus whose humanity was rooted in faithful prayer (i.e., dialogue with God at every level of his being) and expressed in his active ministry and life with others, as well as in his regular turn to solitude. Both of these revealed Jesus' union with God and the nature of divinity and humanity. But if Jesus was rooted in prayer in this way and united with God, why did he cry out in abandonment on the cross? Did God really leave him, and if he did, then how did God raise him from the dead? I have never understood that or believed that God would abandon any of us, so how could he abandon his only begotten Son? The way I have felt about this is, if God could do that to Jesus, then what chance do any of us have?]]

These are all great questions, and difficult ones. They are questions I have struggled with myself, especially in light of my own recent experience of journeying to the depths of myself and there discovering both God and my deepest, truest self. I haven't asked the questions in the same way you have. What I said to myself was, if Jesus was entirely open and attentive to God (because that is what obedience means), and if he was open in this way even unto death on a cross (even unto sinful or godless death), how could he have not been aware of God's presence unless God truly turned away from him? And yet, how can Jesus reveal God is truly and most profoundly God With Us, if he is a God who abandons us in our sinfulness? I recognize there is paradox right at the heart of this experience of Jesus, but this didn't completely resolve my own questions --- especially as I made my own journey into the center of my Self and discovered the deep darkness and hunger there.

Thomas Merton once wrote, [[My brother, perhaps in my solitude I have become as it were an explorer for you, a searcher in realms which you are not able to visit -- except perhaps in the company of your psychologist. I have been summoned to explore a desert area of man's heart in which explanations no longer suffice, and in which one learns that only experience counts. An arid, rocky, dark land of the soul, sometimes illuminated by strange fires which men fear and peopled by spectres which men studiously avoid except in their nightmares. And in this area I have learned that one cannot truly know hope unless he has found out how like despair hope is.]] It was reflecting and meditating on that last sentence, and in conversations with my spiritual director exploring my own experience and the meaning of all that, that I came to an understanding of what Jesus' cry of abandonment both did and didn't mean.

After all, what does it mean to say that despair and hope are very like one another? This line of Merton's comments fascinated me precisely because of my own inner journey where, in the midst of darkness and anguish, I came to experience light and know hope in a new way. And yet, I also knew I had never felt abandoned by God, was never abandoned by God! So, how could Jesus have been? Was this also something Jesus' death and resurrection changed? Or, did God abandon Jesus and then come back to raise him from the depths of godforsakenness? (I admit, that last possibility didn't make theological sense to me!) Was Jesus' cry of dereliction like my own cry in the darkness of despair or near despair? Did he discover God there in that dark and anguished journey to the depths as I had recently done? But I knew that Jesus' cry was from a darker and more anguished and godforsaken place than my own could ever be precisely because Jesus had made that journey before me, and for that reason, because he implicated God in even that godless place/space/time, I truly never had experienced abandonment by God.

And this still left me wondering what abandonment meant in Jesus' cry. If he was abandoned by God, then how had God raised him from godless death? How could Jesus continue to "exist" at all? And if God continued to hold Jesus in existence in some way, then how could someone entirely open to God, as the scriptures tell us Jesus was, not sense God's presence? I won't multiply my questions further here. Needless to say, there were a number of them. So, I began at the beginning by looking up the Greek word for abandonment. What I discovered was that it is a composite word made up of three words: to leave, as in forsaken; down, as in (experiencing) defeat or hopelessness; and in, as in (left in) a set of hostile circumstances. When I put these together, I saw that "abandoned" meant "left in a hopeless set of hostile circumstances" or better, God "failed to rescue" Jesus from these circumstances. Abandonment thus meant the absence of rescue. And then I remembered several examples of someone loving me precisely in NOT rescuing me from terrible circumstances. One of these involved a story I believe I have told here before regarding my major theology teacher and a group of us undergraduates.

John Dwyer once said, "If I see you (any of you students) doing something stupid, I will not stop you! The majors among us looked bewilderedly at one another and asked, "But he loves us! How could he not rescue us??!!" John saw all this and went on, "If you are impaired in some way, yes, I will intervene, but if you are just making a stupid decision, I will not stop you!" He continued, "Let me be clear. I will always be there for you, and I will do what I can to help you both before and afterwards, but I will not rescue you from your decisions." It took me years to learn that this was what genuine love looked like!! It took me even longer to see this as the key to understanding Jesus' cry of abandonment.

Jesus "set his face toward Jerusalem". He took step after fateful step toward the authorities' violent reactions and subsequent actions as he continued to proclaim his Father's kingdom. His prayer in Gethsemane asked his Father if there wasn't another way, and, I believe that in response, his Abba asked him to continue acting with integrity,  choosing to discern and continue his vocation step by step, wherever those steps led him; I also believe he promised Jesus he would be with him -- for that was also his will. Jesus' Abba promised to reveal himself fully as Emmanuel (God with us), and Jesus continued to act with integrity and trust in his Abba's promises. God did NOT promise to rescue Jesus from the hostile circumstances his integrity led him to face. Quite the contrary. And in the very depths of Jesus' journey into the darkest absence of being and meaning, life and love, God was there. But Jesus' question in the Garden was also sharpened there on the cross: why can't you pluck me out of this situation? Why HAVEN'T you rescued me? How will you vindicate me and, more importantly, my proclamation of the truth of your Reign, your sovereignty, if sinful, godless death is allowed to win out? Don't you see, godless death is swallowing me up!! I have nothing whatsoever left to give!! My God (not the more intimate, Abba!), why haven't you rescued me? 

I don't think there is any sense that Jesus felt God turning away in a failure to love him -- and usually, it seems to me, that is what we mean when we speak of being abandoned by someone, namely, they failed or ceased to love us adequately or appropriately. God did not rescue Jesus from the depths of the darkness and anguish of his journey into godless, sinful death, but neither did he cease loving him profoundly and effectively. Neither did Jesus, for his part, close himself off from God (or from the depths of darkness and anguish). Jesus remained wholly open to God, and God continued to accompany him as Emmanuel into the farthest, most alien land we know. Here is the paradox. In his moment of deepest distress and even despair or near-despair, God was there and would bring consolation and life out of it all -- though not immediately or in the way we tend to expect or desire, perhaps. And this dark, even horrific, journey that Jesus made was made for God's sake and for ours. Indeed, it was the most human journey we are each called to make, the journey of inner or existential solitude where what seems infinitely dark and empty of either being or meaning to us, is also the place where we discover the presence of God, and so, a hope that is capable of sustaining and enlivening us in unimaginable ways.

We often want to be rescued from circumstances, and we cry out to God and others when this occurs, but God does not promise us rescue in the usual sense people mean this, I think. God's rescue means to give us the space to be ourselves and experience the consequences of our decisions (along with the consequences of others' decisions and actions as well, whether these are loving or unloving), and it means he will accompany us there. God's rescue means giving life and meaning to our circumstances, sometimes immediately, often eventually, or even only ultimately. God's rescue means transfiguring our darkness and anguish into sources of grace and hope, life and love, confidence and trust. He does this with his Mysterious presence, a presence we may not always be aware of and can never "comprehend". One point is incontrovertible: God cannot do this if he simply lifts us out of these circumstances and drops us into what is really some (or no) other person's life. That, as I eventually learned from John Dwyer's comments that day in that moral theology class, and from my spiritual director and others, for instance, would not really be loving.

The journey Jesus made, from birth right on up to Golgotha and beyond, was thoroughly human. Yes, in many ways, it was also the journey that human sin colored and made necessary. It was the journey of existential solitude, the journey we each make throughout life as we embrace death in all of its many degrees, forms, and faces so that God might redeem these with and in his life and love. Though you didn't ask about this, Merton understood that hermits (and monks and nuns more generally) make this inner journey in a way most do not because they choose and commit their lives to doing so!** They make this choice so that they might experience genuine hope rooted in God and the Christ Event for the sake of God's Kingdom and Gospel. Doctrine, per se, while important, is not enough for the life of the Body of Christ. Interpretations of the cross by others are a critical start, but what is essential if one is to really witness to the truth of the Gospel to others, and bring them to genuine hope, is the truth of our own experience -- even, and perhaps especially when that experience is one of journeying into the shadow of death and despair or near-despair. Recently, I said to my director, "I would not wish this particular journey on anyone, and yet, what I have come to as a result of this very journey, I want for everyone!" 

I think that too is reflected in Merton's comments cited above and in the following continuation of those comments, The language of Christianity has been so used and so misused that sometimes [we] distrust it: [we] don't know whether behind the word 'Cross' there stands the experience of mercy and salvation, or only the threat of punishment. If my word means anything to you, I can say that I have experienced the Cross to mean mercy and not cruelty, truth and not deception: that the news of the truth and love of Jesus is indeed the good news, but in our time it speaks out in strange places. Recently, as I think you refer to, I wrote about hermits under c 603 as pioneers and explorers. What hermits explore is the realm of existential solitude, and that brings with it both great suffering and ineffable joy. We do this because our experience here undergirds and verifies the Church's proclamation of the Gospel. We do this for her, as well as for ourselves and for the entire world. 

One person recently also asked me if I knew what I was committing myself to when I made my perpetual eremitical profession and accepted consecration. I have to say, no, not clearly. Maybe hardly at all. It never occurred to me that the darknesses and anguished places I explored along this journey could truly benefit anyone -- sometimes not even myself -- yet now I know that in that "strange place" occasioned by trauma and serious and chronic illness, that place where I faced despair and the desire for death straight on while yearning almost beyond words for life and wholeness, is a privileged place where I met God (and my truest self) and was granted the hope, joy, and healing that such an encounter brings. THAT is the journey of existential solitude, and it is also the heart of Paul's theology of the Cross that I, in my youthful "naivete", once told Abp Vigneron I wanted to explore and understand completely. 

I know this doesn't answer all of your questions, but it is already quite long, and I hope it is a good start. May the peace of Christ be with you!!

** Consider what every Benedictine affirms as their primary motivation when they enter a monastery. They declare they are here "to seek God". They do this, not because they do not know God or because God has "gone missing" from the larger world, but because they do not know themselves or God as well or as profoundly as they are called to, and because the monastery (or hermitage) is a privileged place to pursue such intimate knowing. It is this journey of existential solitude, a journey in search of fullness of life and hope rooted in God, that they enter to pursue. So too with every hermit under c 603.

The Silence of Solitude and the Distinction Between Physical Solitude and Existential Solitude

[[Dear Sister Laurel, You speak of the silence of solitude and of solitude as a form of penance; at the same time you have written about the need hermits have for relationships. Don't relationships mitigate the degree of solitude you are also embracing? Could you say more about the way this all works? I really like my solitude and could never consider it to be penitential! I would think you or any other hermit would be drawn to solitude as well, no? ]]

Many thanks for these questions and for your patience is awaiting a response! Let me draw some distinctions that are central to eremitical solitude. I tend to use the term eremitical solitude when I am speaking about the reality c 603 specifies as a central element of consecrated solitary eremitical life. I also distinguish between physical solitude, which has to do with being physically separated from others, and eremitical solitude, which includes physical solitude but is not exhausted by it and, especially, is not to be defined in terms of it alone. Instead, I experience eremitical solitude as an incredibly rich symbol with a number of dimensions and defining characteristics. At its heart, I think, is the experience of being irreducibly alone, not "belonging" to anyone or anything except God from whom, this side of death, we are at least somewhat alienated. I identify this dimension of eremitical solitude as existential solitude. This dimension of eremitical solitude does not change, that is, it does not matter whether we are with others or not; in terms of existential solitude, we are always essentially alone with God. 

Eremitical solitude allows one to experience existential solitude with a kind of sharpness and depth that many never experience until their last years when they are isolated by illness or age and bereavement, for instance. In fact, (we) hermits practice physical solitude precisely to sharpen our experience of existential solitude. Our prayer does this all the time. We learn to depend more and more profoundly on God and God alone, knowing that without God there is no real challenge or ability to grow truer, no genuine consolation, no personal strength, and no life, but especially no meaningful life. This sense of what it means to exist and for one's life to be meaningful only through the grace (i.e., the presence and power) of God is sharpened and honed to a razor edge within the hermitage. For consecrated hermits under c 603, even the fact that our vocation is ecclesial and that the Church has specifically called us to live this in her name does not really ease this existential solitude. Often these elements of our life (i.e., ecclesiality, living this life in the Church's name) along with our limited ministry to others, only sharpen it further. The same is true of most relationships.

When I speak of the need for friendships, it must be recognized that these are a Divine grace that not only allows us to grow in our capacity for and ability to love but also helps make us aware of our existential solitude. They are an important way God is mediated to us! Yes, you could say they mitigate physical solitude, but existential solitude is a different matter. Friendships can ease our experience of this for a limited time, but inevitably, and ironically, they lead to a sharpened sense of existential solitude. You have heard the adage "One is never so alone as when one is in a crowd". We experience existential solitude as well when we know loss and grief with regard to those we have loved. Thus, while friendships allow us to share and grow in our capacity for love, they also cause us to run up against what I described above as our irreducible aloneness. This is the aloneness that occurs whenever we realize that what is deepest in us (our relationship with God and the eremitical vocation that stems from this) is not understood by even our best friends (unless, of course, they also happen to be contemplatives and even hermits). And even then, this is really more a matter of their experience resonating with our own, rather than the other person actually knowing our unique experience.

When you say that you could never consider solitude to be penitential it sounds to me like you are saying it would never be uncomfortable for you. Penance does not need to be uncomfortable. When I think of penance (or asceticism), it can mean anything that helps integrate, deepen, extend, or regularize my prayer. It is not necessarily uncomfortable any more than what are genuine consolations** are necessarily pleasant. My Rule says the following:

Prayer represents an openness and responsiveness to the personal and creative address of God which is rooted in and empowered by the Holy Spirit. Penance seems to me to be any activity or practice which assists in achieving, regularizing, integrating, deepening and extending, 1) this openness and responsiveness to God, 2) a correlative esteem for myself, and 3) for the rest of God's creation. While prayer corresponds in part to those deep moments of victory God achieves within me, and includes my grateful response, penance is that Christian and more extended form of festivity implicating the victory in the whole of life . . . . (Eph 1:4; Lumen Gentium 5, 48) from O'Neal, Sr. Laurel M, Canon 603 Eremitical Rule of Life, approved by Bishop Allen H. Vigneron, Diocese of Oakland, 02. September. 2007.)

The role of solitude (here I mean physical solitude since this is the only kind of solitude we can actually choose) is precisely something the hermit chooses in order to become a contemplative person of prayer. It is a discipline that helps us become open and responsive to the personal and creative address of God. At the same time, physical solitude makes keener the existential solitude that represents our deepest aloneness and also our most profound communion with God. This experience of physical solitude, then, can be immensely creative; at the same time, it can be incredibly difficult and even painful for us. In the Old and New Testaments, long-term solitude involving physical isolation from other people, is looked at with pity and even horror.*** And yet, it is a discipline we hermits embrace as a necessary element of eremitical life. 

When most folks speak of desiring solitude they are speaking of degrees of physical solitude that allow them respite from daily demands involving others and which give time and space to solitary, relaxing activities one doesn't ordinarily have time or space for. Hermits are speaking instead of a reality that throws them back upon their own existential solitude, and so, ultimately, upon their relationship with the ultimate and absolute Mystery we call God. This is at once awesome and terrible, what Rudolf Otto called "mysterium tremendum et fascinans" --- the mystery that at once repels and attracts!! (cf also, The Paradox of Faith: Loved into Ever Deepening Hunger for God)

I hope this is helpful. There are other distinctions I ordinarily make in speaking about solitude or "the silence of solitude", so I hope it is okay that I limited myself here. While this response might not be what you expected, it reflects what I am reflecting on personally these days. If you want to push me a bit further by asking clarifying questions, please do that!

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** Consolations, in the Ignatian sense of the term are experiences that bring us closer to God, not simply experiences that feel good or are pleasant. Consolations can be difficult, even painful experiences while desolations are experiences that lead us away from God --- even if they feel pleasant in the process!

***Barbour, John D, The Value of Solitude, The Ethics and Spirituality of Aloneness in Autobiography, University of Virginia Press, 2004, p 12.

A Contemplative Moment: On the Experience of Existential Dread

Existential Dread

Dread is an expression of our insecurity in this earthly life, a realization that we are never and can never be completely "sure" in the sense of possessing a definitive and established spiritual status. It means that we cannot any longer hope in ourselves, in our wisdom, our virtues, our fidelity. We see too clearly that all that is "ours" is nothing, and can completely fail us. In other words, we no longer rely on what we "have," what has been given by our past, what has been required. We are open to God and his mercy in the inscrutable future and our trust is entirely in his grace, which will support our liberty in the emptiness where we will confront unforeseen decisions. Only when we have descended in dread to the center of our own nothingness, by his grace and guidance, can we be led by him, in his own time, to find him in losing ourselves. . . .This deep dread must be seen for what it is: not as punishment, but as purification and grace. Indeed it is a great gift of God, for it is the precise point of our encounter with his fullness.

Thomas Merton, OCSO, Contemplative Prayer