The Silence of Solitude and the Redemption of Isolation (#7)

[[ Sr. Laurel, Could you please say something more about the distinction between "validating one's isolation" and redeeming it? I don't really get the first part of that at all even if I see where the change from isolation to solitude is a positive thing.]]

Yes, sorry, I should have explained that better. What I mean is that many of us (and many who are called to the eremitical "silence of solitude") begin with situations which marginalize and even isolate us. Chronic illness is the most common situation I know of and it is the one I am personally familiar with. Chronic illness, as I have written here before isolates and causes various forms of dislocation. The rhythm and tempo of one's life is simply different than that of most people, and depending on the illness involved one may be unable to drive or even use public transportation easily in ways which allow one to be more independent. Ordinarily poverty accompanies serious illness or disability, due to the inability to work, study (perhaps), etc. One is dependent upon others' assistance more than usual and the relationships may be unequal and not those of peers. In terms of the Church those with serious illness may be ministered to but are rarely seen as a source of ministry themselves. Certainly they cannot usually become religious if they feel such a call, and as lay persons, their lives are also often undervalued. One finds that with every scale we ordinarily use, except that of the Gospel, the chronically ill are invalided and invalidated.

Canon 603, the Canon which governs the solitary eremitical vocation in the Church can seem like a way of validating this isolation. Here I mean that it may seem that this is a context for making this isolated life valid or worth something again. (Think of a parking lot ticket as an analogy for the sense in which I am using "validate" here. It can be validated during a visit to a nearby store or doctor's office, for instance. Unless it is stamped, approved, "validated" it is seen as being without value. Once this occurs it become worth something it was not worth before.) When I first began considering the place of Canon 603 and the nature of the life it outlined I sensed that perhaps this would be a perfect context which allowed all the elements of my own life to make sense: my gifts, talents, education, yearning for God and commitment to a vowed life, as well as my deficiencies, weaknesses, and brokenness. This is actually not a bad reason to begin discerning whether one is called to eremitical life, but it is a far cry from actually doing so, and even further from living such a life! Here one's solitariness is more a form of isolation and alienation. Even if one were prematurely allowed to make vows according to this canon, one would not YET have discerned a true eremitical vocation nor become a hermit as the Canon itself defines her. Something else must take place first.

That "event", that thing which must happen first is the redemption of one's isolation and the transformation of it into genuine solitude. It is this that allows a person to look around at what once was an apart-ment in both the usual and literal senses and say, "this is a hermitage and I am a hermit living in, from, and for communion with God!" It is this that makes of illness a subtext in one's life rather than its theme song! It is this transformation that makes of what was --- in worldly terms --- an absurd, merely tragic, or even meaningless life instead something of inestimable worth (not simply because every person has such dignity in the eyes of God) but because now this life, this way of being limited and marginalized, with all its weakness, brokenness, inability, etc is actually an effective and significant gift of the Holy Spirit to both Church and World. The accomplishment of this transformation is something only the grace of God can do. Thus, my other blog articles on "Lemons and Lemonade" or (a la Merton) the door to solitude ONLY being opened from within (by solitude itself), and thus too a part of the reason for my insistence that a candidate for diocesan eremitical life who wishes to make profession of vows in order to accept the public rights and responsibilities of this life must be, in some essential way, a hermit already.

What one must do is move from a life dominated by external silence and aloneness which are defined in terms of absence, alienation, and isolation, to a life where these serve and reflect the deeper and graced reality of "the silence OF solitude." Isolation must be redeemed or transformed into authentic (dialogical or relational) solitude, and this only occurs by the grace (i.e., the powerful presence and action) of God. One must, in some way move (and be moved) from the silence of voicelessness or the inarticulateness of a scream to the freedom and articulateness of what the New Testament calls parrhesia, an empowered and empowering speech --- even if this voice is rarely heard by the world at large. Further, those in the Church whose job it is to discern and profess those truly called to Canon 603 vocations must be clear on this distinction and affirm that the transition and transformation has been negotiated before temporary profession --- even if it still needs consolidation and internalization in more profound and extensive ways.

Again, this is one of the places where the distinction between "silence and solitude" and "the silence OF solitude" is crucially important. I suspect that this particular defining element of Canon 603 is NOT well enough understood --- not by chanceries, not by candidates or aspirants for profession, and not even by some diocesan hermits! (I say this because I myself wrote a Rule of Life which substituted "silence and solitude" for the accurate canonical phrase, "the silence of solitude" and that was only 5 or 6 years ago! I say it also because I think every diocesan hermit I have spoken to in the past several years has done the same thing at one time or another -- sometimes consistently -- despite the fact that available commentary on the Canon is clear about the special significance of this term!)

Validating one's isolation in the negative sense I am using the term involves applying a term to it which makes it seem more acceptable. It falls short of really giving meaning to something in a way which truly transforms it and makes it of great worth. We can call a loner or a chronically il;l person, for instance, a hermit and "validate" (try to make "valid" or meaningful) their isolation. Those who are isolated in some sense may seek to use Canon 603 in this way. This, of itself, does not change their isolation though it does appear to make it less worthless, tragic, or absurd. Of course, in the process it also effectively makes eremitical life itself essentially about isolation and alienation rather than authentic solitude --- only now we have sugar coated this with a bit of a lie (in the form of a stereotype or caricature) so the real bitterness is easier for everyone to swallow. Well-meaning as this might be it is a practice which empties the term ("eremitical") of real meaning and makes the life (both generally and specifically) incredible or unable to be believed or appreciated in the process. This will be true not only for the Church (meaning the whole People of God) and world who will recognize the fraud being perpetrated here at least enough to ridicule it or consider it unworthy of affirmation, but by the putative hermit as well --- who will know her "eremitical life" is a lie even (and perhaps especially) if she really is called to such a vocation.

(Thus it may be tempting for dioceses, in a misguided attempt to be pastoral, to profess anyone under Canon 603 who is chronically ill (or whatever the source of their isolation) and requests this, but it would be wrongheaded and destructive --- not only for the vocation to eremitical life itself, but for the individual professed in this way without an authentic vocation. Canon 603 is not a refuge for those without legitimate religious vocations or other access to public profession/consecration, or who are seeking to make isolation or simply being a loner legitimate or valid ways of living. Instead it is the way for the solitary hermit to assume the public rights and responsibilities of diocesan eremitical life; it is the way to profess one whose isolation and voicelessness has been redeemed and transformed by God into the solitary prophetic word of one dwelling consciously and responsibly in the heart of reality.)

Redeeming one's isolation, then, is a very different matter than merely validating (or trying to validate) one's isolation. Here the message of one's life is vastly different than it once was, for such a life attests to the power of God to bring meaning out of absurdity, life out of death, hope out of hopelessness, power and authority out of powerlessness and futility. Isolation is no longer that although superficially things may look similar. What replaces isolation is communion and community which is lived out as "inner" rather than merely external solitude, first of all with God and with oneself as one comes to accept one's whole self, and then with all others who are grounded in and linked to one through God. Illness (or whatever the situation that isolates one) may not change substantially but it is no longer the dominant reality in one's life. If one is in intractable and chronic pain, then the main message of one's life is what God does in spite of that --- and that is a joyful thing; it is evangelion or gospel in the truest sense. Will one struggle with illness and pain, in whatever forms they occur? Of course. But one does not struggle alone, nor is the struggle worthless to the broader Church and world. Still, it is not the struggle per se that is the first word the hermit articulates with her life, but the victory God has achieved in transforming isolation into the silence ,and so, into the song of solitude!

As always, I hope this helps but if it raises more questions or is unclear in some way, please get back to me. (I know, after today at least, that you don't need to be told that really, but the statement is for others as well!) All good wishes!

More Followup Questions, "On Lemons and Lemonade"

[[Dear Sister O'Neal,
Again, thank you for your responses to my questions on vocation about taking lemons and making lemonade. I do understand the benefits of some of what you are saying, but a lot of it seems to conflict with the idea that the eremitical vocation is the highest form of a monastic vocation or that one needs to live a monastic life for years before being allowed to live as a hermit. It sounds to me like you believe just anyone can become a hermit and should if life has knocked them around a bit and created isolation and dislocation. Even if we are more careful than this about accepting people to become hermits doesn't this idea of the vocation have less dignity than the one which is more traditional in monastic life and church history?]]

Hello again. First let me respond to the overstatement you made regarding what I believe about the eremitical vocation. I don't think we will get anywhere so long as you believe this is what I am saying. No, I emphatically do not believe just anyone can become a hermit, nor should they simply because life has knocked them about and created isolation and dislocation. By far and away the majority of folks in such situations will be called by God to remain "in the world" reconnecting with people and serving both church and world from this vantage point. A relatively few people will rightly discern that they are called to be lay hermits, and a far fewer number will discern a call to diocesan eremitism or a community of hermits. While I DO believe there are some segments of the population who might have greater numbers of vocations to lay or diocesan eremitical life than others (chronically ill or single elderly in particular), the relative incidence of these vocations will ALWAYS be rare. I admit to being really surprised you thought I believed JUST anyone should become a hermit because I have actually been concerned that my posts are discouraging or overly cautious about this matter, and perhaps even elitist sounding. I would never have thought I was giving the opposite impression, but in a way, that is also reassuring.

Now, onto your real question. It is absolutely the case that eremitical life has been seen as the highest form of monastic life throughout much of the history of the church. This is true despite the origins of the vocation which pre-dated cenobitical monastic life altogether. By recognizing or allowing for the possibility that a number of people come to eremitical life without this formal monastic background and formation do we really diminish the dignity of the vocation itself? This question prompts others: Do we change the vocation's character in doing this? Is it wrong to admit lay persons to eremitical profession and consecration without this specific foundation, for instance? In doing so don't we detract from the idea given to monastery monastics that eremitical life is the highest form of monastic life?

Although I think your initial question raises all these additional ones, I am not sure I can answer them all, and certainly not right here. However, I can answer your original question about the dignity of the vocation, and my answer is really pretty simple: the vocation has dignity because and to the extent it is a call from God, not to the extent it measures on some scale of vocations in human terms. I believe that all eremitical vocations are essentially monastic because the heart of the term monastic really means "one" or "solitary." True inner solitude is developed over time, and it is in this regard especially (though not only) that eremitical life can be seen as the apex of monastic life. I also believe that some degree of monastic or religious formation is important to live this life, however, this does not mean one needs to get that formation IN a monastery or as a monastery monastic. Neither does it mean that monastics look at "graduating" to eremitical life as a goal any more than hermits per se think of entering reclusion as "graduating" or see this as the goal of either the eremite or the cenobite. While it is true that only a few monastics will ever hear a call to eremitical solitude, and even fewer to reclusion, and while it is true that eremitical life has in some ways rightly been seen as the epitome of monastic life, none of this can constrain the Holy Spirit from calling whomever s/he will and from whatever situation life creates.

Early on, in the days of the desert Fathers and Mothers, as you probably know, hermits were drawn from laity. It is probably true that as intriguing as this way of life was for thousands of folks, not all of them had calls to strict eremitical life. We would likely not have seen the development of cities in the desert or actual monasteries had all of these people been called to be hermits in the sense we use the word today, or in the sense of the desert Fathers and Mothers were who were called to the greater or inner deserts. Still, eremitical life was the life of a committed and devout laity. The process of becoming a hermit was individualized and much simpler than it is today: an elder in the life would take in the person to mentor, grant them the habit, and teach them all they needed to know by some direct instruction and insistence on the discipline or custody of the cell. To some extent, what we are seeing today is the resurgence and reappropriation of elements of this original calling.

What my posts have actually been calling for is the best of both worlds: the original call to the desert of the days of the desert Fathers and Mothers, and the formation, experience, focus and disciplines of monastic life itself. IF Bishops were to admit people to profession willy nilly, without sufficient formation (formal or informal), insufficient life experience, education (theological and spiritual), psychological health, and the ability to articulate clearly how it is God is calling them to a vocation which is grounded in love and is at once solitary and communal, then yes, there is a distinct danger that the eremitical vocation will be diminished in the process. So long as Bishops take care in these matters and with regard to the forms of consecrated life entrusted to them in Canon 605 I don't think the danger is very great. Education is needed, of course. Even Bishops need to read up on eremitism and especially contemporary diocesan eremitism. Meanwhile the lay eremitical vocation also needs to be made more well-known. All this will help with the concerns you raise.

The bottom line remains though, that the dignity of a vocation is a function of the divine call involved. So long as people take care to truly discern that action of God in people's lives, the vocation they discover will be divine and of infinite dignity --- whether it is also the epitome of monastic life or not. Such vocations should be treated with care, nurtured, cultivated, formed, but it is without question that the flower that sprouts from between the cracks of a residential sidewalk is of no less worth or validity than is the bloom that has been nurtured from seedlings in a monastery hothouse. Similarly, the flower that gives joy to those who see it springing from the cracks in the sidewalk has achieved its end and goal no less than the one decorating the church at Easter. Both are and are doing precisely what God has created them to be and do.

Again, I wish you peace, and a wonderful Holy Week.

Followup, On Lemons and Lemonade

[[Dear Sister, I wrote [the following question], {{Dear Sister O'Neal, is your idea of the eremitical life a case of taking the lemons life gives us and making lemonade out of them? So the Church actually professes and consecrates people whose claim to have a vocation is that they have managed to find a way to make lemonade out of lemons? This seems like a pretty negative or undignified way of receiving an actual vocation from God!}}

(The email continues:) Thank you for your response, but maybe I wasn't clear about what I found objectionable in your description of the eremitical vocation. I was brought up to believe that we were born with a particular Vocation. I was taught that that was a great dignity and part of who we really were. No one said anything about the "exigencies of life" or "life breaking us" and then discovering a call coming out of those things. God knew from the beginning that he wanted me to be a wife or a nun, for example. He wasn't playing catch up, or trying to repair what life had done to us. The Vocation was eternal, and could be missed, rejected, and/or lost altogether. Your view of the vocation to eremitical life sounds pretty different than all this and lacks nobility. It is a kind of solution to what life throws at us, and therefore it lacks the dignity of an eternal vocation. Do you see what I mean?]]

Well, there is no doubt that in some ways our visions of vocations and how they are mediated to us, are heard, or are responded to, differ from one another's. I maintain elements of a theology of vocation which are identical to yours, but I also modify others to allow for the way real life works most often. You see, the view of vocation you grew up with does do a wonderful job of conveying the dignity and the urgency of a call from God, but on the other hand, it can lead people to despair that indeed they have missed their vocation, have settled for a second class life instead, and even that God no longer is calling them to anything substantive. What I try to do when I write about vocations generally is to combine the eternal element, the "noble" element you refer to with its characteristic urgency, but also allow for all the twists and turns of life we experience while we are discerning our vocations, and even while we are living them out. Especially I have to allow for the fact that God's call never goes away, that it is a dynamic and ever-renewed reality which is constantly proferred but is able to allow for the "exigencies of life" at the same time. I don't know there is anything ignoble in any of this.

One thing I particularly can't agree with is the idea of a missed vocation precisely, but I readily admit that throughout one's life various paths to the fulfillment of one's vocation will open or close, be followed or missed, thus requiring one discern the best paths remaining to one (or needing to be forged BY one with the grace of God!). You were taught we had a single vocation, and that was seen as a vocation to religious, priestly, married, or single life, for instance. I understand, on the other hand, that we each have a single vocation, namely authentic humanity in and of God in Christ, but the paths to the achievement or realization of that vocation are potentially many and varied and include what you identified as Vocations with a capital V, so to speak: religious, priestly, married, or single life, etc. Missing a Vocation in your schema means to get married when God is calling one to be a religious (or vice versa, though one rarely hears this situation characterized thusly!). Missing a vocation in my schema means falling short of the greatness and authenticity (that is, the holiness) God means and empowers us to achieve with his grace. In that sense, we almost all "miss our vocations" to some extent, but it is a far less hopeless situation than the term means in your schema on vocation.

This is not to say that falling short is not a serious business, but in the theology of vocation I am working with, whatever path one chooses --- even if one chooses badly --- is still a means of growth in one's fundamental or foundational Vocation. Down the line other paths may open up to one: another marriage, religious life, eremitical life, etc (along with all the little "side paths" that each of these can involve: teaching, nursing, homemaking, ministry of all kinds, etc), but they will serve the larger or more foundational vocation to authentic humanity. Such a view certainly allows for a single path as the main way towards fulfilling one's foundational vocation should a person pursue marriage or a religious vocation right out of high school or college, for instance, but if these do not work out in some way one need not conclude they have "missed their vocations" or believe that God had one plan for them which they (whether culpably or through the circumstances of life) have now blown.

Further, this notion of vocation does greater justice to God's ability to call life out of any situation, to redeem any situation, to call to discipleship out of any set of circumstances, etc. It does greater justice to the ongoing and faithful nature of God's call which is always creative, and never JUST a message he communicates to us (a message like, "You should be married" or You should be a nun!" or even "Come, be this or that," for instance.) Vocation is a call to something, yes, but it also summons forth life and meaning and hope from within a person, and it continues to do so so long as the person lives. It is not so much a message as it is a name, "Laurel! [with the subtext:] I call you to yourself and to myself!" What I am saying, badly perhaps, is that a vocation is not something one hears once upon a time, but a Word of God that one allows to work within oneself over the whole of her life and her life is shaped in response. Vocation is something God does within us, and something he will continue to do until we make our final responses in death. OF COURSE it is something which accommodates the exigencies of life. Of course it must be heard in light of these! Of course they will alter its shape and timbre even while the essential theme remains the same.

Finally then, I think this notion of Vocation (with a capital V) does greater justice to the reasons for changing vocations (with a small v) over the span of one's life. With regard to the eremitical life which is very poorly known and less well understood and which is more usually associated with the second half of one's life anyway, it is not at all unusual for a person to enter religious life or marry only to discover many years later that life and the grace of God has opened the door to eremitical solitude to them. Active religious discover a call to contemplative life, contemplative and cloistered religious discover a call to even greater solitude, married people are bereaved and after some healing and time has passed, discover the call to the desert, those who are chronically ill and could not enter a community (or remain within one) find that God continues to call them but in a new direction which esteems their weakness and allows it to be the soil in which his own power is perfected. These are just a few of the scenarios possible here. VERY FEW people consider an eremitical vocation early on. Even fewer are called to it. And yet, these vocations growing out of the exigencies of life AND the grace of God are completely authentic, miraculous calls in fact.

I hope this clarifies where I am coming from in this matter of vocations. While it is wonderful when a person discovers early on the vocational path that will serve them all their lives, focusing on this one way of things happening creates serious pastoral and theological problems for many. It can prevent them from seeing the dignity and nobility of all vocational paths, or of even guessing that they exist. It can lead to despair over missed opportunities, and the failure to attend to new ones every bit as important and "noble" as the early missed opportunities. More, it can distract us from the primary focus and unceasing challenge of our lives, the eternal call to authentic human existence in and of the grace of God --- no matter what vocational path one takes to realize that.

I wish you peace, and a wonderful Holy Week.

On Lemons and Lemonade

[[Dear Sister O'Neal, is your idea of the eremitical life a case of taking the lemons life gives us and making lemonade out of them? So, the Church actually professes and consecrates people whose claim to have a vocation is that they have managed to find a way to make lemonade out of lemons? Seems like a pretty negative or undignified way of receiving an actual vocation from God!]]


LOL! Well, let me apologize if the idea that life creates solitary persons and the grace of God creates hermits sounds a bit like a negative or undignified idea of vocation. Honestly, to me it sounds like the story of sin and redemption, the healing and transformation of the broken and unworthy into something reflecting and revealing the power and presence of God --- hardly a negative dynamic as I understand it. But let me enlarge on and perhaps extend your metaphor in order to try and be clear about what I am saying about the nature of and way a person generally becomes a hermit, and in particular, a diocesan hermit.

First, the general truth of your metaphor: Yes, I have said that life tends to break us, and that it is only the grace of God which can bring wholeness out of that. Sometimes, rarely, this grace is received as a call to eremitical solitude for the whole of one's life. (For some it may be an eremitical vocation for a shorter period of time, a period of transition, for instance -- thus the place of lay eremitism in some instances, or temporary vows which are not renewed or do not lead to perpetual profession. Note here that I believe all vows are made with the sense that they are for life, even "temporary" vows, but sometimes it simply does not work out that way.) I personally think that the notion that there may be a call for the whole of a person's life (meaning as something more than a transitional period) is especially true in the case persons with chronic illness, and also for some who are older and single and/or bereaved, but obviously it can happen to anyone, and in such cases it may be a call to either lay or consecrated eremitical life.

Please realize I am not simply saying that eremitical solitude is the reasonable expedient in such a case, the avenue a merely clever person could seize on without a genuine call. It might serve in that way in the short term (especially the very short term), but I (and those who really live solitude full time) honestly believe that a person must find they are truly called to solitude by God or their lives will not be fruitful, they will really be frustrated and reflect the lack of life, the resentment, hopelessness, and so forth that is always associated with a life which is crippled and unable to reach its true and full purpose. More bluntly, as I put the matter earlier, solitude will chew them up and spit them out, or as Merton described it,either it will invite them in or it will drive them nuts.

But vocations come to us in the midst of life's realities. God speaks to and calls us forth in ways which transform and transfigure them, and in ways which allow them to take on a genuinely sacramental character. The realities themselves may seem unworthy, and --- as in yesterday's readings with regard either to the serpents, the serpent on a staff, or the manna in the desert --- even be disgusting or repugnant in themselves; still, it is the nature of God's grace to render them sacramental. God's call is always to life --- life in the midst of death, wholeness out of and in the midst of brokenness, righteousness out of and in the midst of sin, etc. The experience of being called is not usually dramatic and extraordinary. Instead it comes over time with moments of quiet with increasing joy, greater clarity and meaning, fuller life, greater capacity for loving oneself and others, etc. It is a fact that vocations are the path by which a life that would be relatively meaningless otherwise, comes to make an almost infinite sense, not only for oneself alone, but for the world one inhabits as well. There is no lack of dignity in such a call.

But as I just suggested, diocesan hermits go one step further than the lemons/lemonade metaphor you supplied. It is not enough for them to take the lemons life hands them and find ways to make lemonade out of them. God must do this, of course, for we alone are unable. But even more, the diocesan hermit is also deeply convinced that the world is desperately thirsty for this very lemonade; she becomes a hermit not ONLY because this solitude is a way of transforming the lemons life gave her, but because God, the church, and the world needs her to do this in THIS SPECIFIC way. And in this way she will allow the grace of God to transform her life as well as empower her to pour it out for others in a way few others will be able to do. I think all these components must be present in an authentic eremitical vocation, and I don't find anything in this essentially negative or lacking in dignity. As I understand it, it is really something quite awesome --- that God could (and WOULD!) take the brokenness of my life and fashion it into a drink for a thirsting world is pretty amazing, and the essence of Catholic Sacramental and vocational theology.