On the relationship of Chronic Illness to Eremitical Solitude

 

[[Dear Sister Laurel, it seems to me that your insistence that eremitical solitude is not a matter of isolation but an experience of community has close ties with the way you experience chronic illness. I realized recently that isolation is a key problem for those with chronic illness and was led to your blog. As a result of my reading I wondered if you have been sensitized to the relationship of isolation to solitude by both chronic illness and eremitical life? Do you ever think about the way these two pieces of your vocation are related?  Assuming you do, have you ever wondered if your own chronic illness has led to an illegitimate conclusion about the relationship of isolation and solitude in eremitical life?]]

Wow! Really excellent observations and questions! Definitely make me want to ask you about your own background  (psychology, theology, spirituality, etc). Thank you. I would answer all of your questions in the affirmative except the last one about an illegitimate conclusion. That one I would argue has to be answered in the negative. In one way and another I have thought about the relationship between isolation and solitude and the way chronic illness is related to eremitical life not just occasionally but in an ongoing way for the last 50 years!

While both my own chronic illness and eremitical life sensitized me to the relationship between isolation and solitude and their distinction from one another, they did so in a mutually illustrative way. Moreover, it was precisely my move to eremitical solitude which represented a final move from the isolation of chronic illness to solitude itself. This move from isolation to solitude, something which comes with and requires growth and healing in an ongoing way, is part of the redemptive experience I have said is necessary in discerning an eremitical vocation --- at least it is part of the redemptive experience at the heart of my own eremitical vocation! If eremitical life is about isolation rather than solitude, or if these two things are not distinguishable, then eremitical solitude would have increased the isolation associated with chronic illness and could in no way have been redemptive for me. It has done just the opposite. Because of this, because the fruit of eremitical life actually was the redemption of isolation associated with a medically and surgically intractable seizure disorder couple with a Regional Complex Pain Syndrome, I have been able to move back and forth in my own reflection on eremitical solitude, between solitude's nature and quality, the ways the isolation of this illness can be redeemed, and also the idea of chronic illness as (potential eremitical) vocation. These three elements especially are interwoven in my thought and writing.

 Originally I dealt only with chronic illness and the tension between my own need and desire to be part of ordinary life in the ways "everyone else" supposedly is. I was educated in systematic theology and had prepared to teach and otherwise minister in the Church and Academy but could not because of chronic illness. Eventually, because of my engagement with theology (especially Paul's theology of the cross and a strong theology of language or theological linguistics), my work in spiritual direction, reflection on Scripture (especially Paul and Mark), and my own prayer, I came to think about chronic illness as vocation. The heart of the gospel message I heard was: "My grace is sufficient for you, my power is made perfect in weakness!" (2 Cor 12:9) In 1983 canon 603 was published as part of the Revised Code of Canon Law and that triggered some more thought while it led me to the idea not just of chronic illness as vocation but as a potential vocation to eremitical life. In all of this I was looking at the way a person who is chronically ill is searching for ways to live a meaningful life and see their life as one of genuine value. When illness prevents so much, especially meaningful ways of giving of oneself and living community, what does one do? How can one look at things and find meaning? How can one be who one is most deeply called to be? Does chronic illness need to prevent one finding and living the answers to these questions?

After some time living an experiment in eremitical life I decided I had discovered the context for living my own vocation to authentic humanity. It was here I began thinking and praying in a more focused way about the distinction between solitude and isolation. I realized more and more that the two were different and was beginning to see more clearly that eremitical solitude (only one kind of solitude afterall) might, in fact, represent the redemption of isolation -- both generally and for me specifically. Out of this experience came a number of strands of thought: physical v inner solitude (a perennial distinction in the thought of every hermit), stereotypes of eremitical life, the distinction between validating and redeeming isolation, the way God alone is sufficient for us --- what this means and does not mean, becoming the Word of God, person as question and God as completing answer, relinquishing discrete gifts for the gift one is made to be by God, the necessity of a redemptive experience at the heart of one's eremitical life in discerning such vocations, the communal nature of solitude, the indispensable place of spiritual direction in eremitical life, and especially the silence of solitude as context, goal, and charism of eremitical  life. At the heart of all of these is the redemptive activity of God and especially the way the grace of God transforms isolation into solitude and renders chronic illness and the life touched by chronic illness richly meaningful and profoundly humanized. Illness raised the existential question of meaning for me; Eremitical life proved to be the context mediating God's own answer to that question --- the answer that God alone can be for every person.

Because of all of this I would have to say that chronic illness has led me to understand some things about eremitical life I might not have appreciated as much otherwise. I believe chronic illness has thus been a gift which sensitized me to dynamics inherent in the hermit vocation, not only the nature of eremitical solitude as an experience of community and the way it cannot be used to validate misanthropy and isolation from others, but also the way the person we become through God's love is the gift we bring to the Church in place of discrete gifts and talents we may have to give up or leave unrealized. At the same time chronic illness is part of the way God has shaped my own heart into the heart of a hermit. Far from agreeing that it has led me to an illegitimate conclusion re the relationship between isolation and solitude. I believe it prepared me to raise the question in a particularly urgent and acute way while opening me to the answer embodied in or represented by eremitical life.

I suspect you were not looking for such an autobiographical answer, and to be sure, I could have outlined my answer in a less personal way; however, I really have been living the question and the answer in one way and another through the whole of my adult life. I sincerely hope this is helpful!

"It is all of a piece --- ecstasy and epilepsy"

Yesterday's reading from Mark is always challenging for me. It is the story of the Father with the epileptic Son. Because of my own seizure disorder I have struggled my entire adult life with the situation described and the questions raised in Mark 9:14-29. I have struggled with injuries and memories of injuries or the sense of ever-present danger and threat Mark describes so well. For many years every day and even every hour was marked by terror because of this and I yearned to be able to embody Jesus' admonition to, "Be not afraid." I have reflected long and hard on the accusation of the age's faithlessness. Especially though I have struggled personally with the last exchange between the disciples and Jesus: [["Why could we not drive the spirit out?" He said to them, "This kind can only come out through prayer."]]

My own struggle to understand and accept my chronic illness and the things it has made both impossible and --- more importantly! --- possible in my life eventually found its summary and resolution in the words of Paul: "My grace is sufficient for you, my power is made perfect in weakness." (2 Cor 12:9) It underscored the importance of paradox in Christian life and especially the relationship of human poverty to Divine grace. So central was all of this to me that, as I have already noted here at other points, I used Paul's summary of the heart of an incarnational faith lived in and with Christ as the motto engraved on my perpetual (eremitical) profession ring.  I used the similar affirmation we find in the Gospel of John where Jesus responds to news of Lazareth's illness as a key text inspiring my life and therefore as a piece of the Scriptural underpinnings of my Rule, [[When Jesus heard that, he said, This sickness is not to death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby.]] But every once in a while someone captures this same dynamic and affirmation in words I have not heard before. Sometimes they do it in a way which speaks directly and powerfully to me and my own experience.

Yesterday at the end of Mass, my pastor read a brief passage from the book Unexpected News, Reading the Bible with Third World Eyes by Robert McAfee Brown. The passage was titled (not by Brown; it was part of a small anthology of reflections), "Down from the Mountaintop": [[ As soon as the 'religious experience' of the  transfiguration was over, Jesus goes down from the mountain to respond to human need, the healing of an epileptic boy. When the boy's distraught Father asks for help, Jesus does not respond, "Look, I 've just had a marvelous experience and I don't want to lose the glow." No, things are immediately earthy, human, even ugly --- for a person in an epileptic seizure is not a pretty sight. It is all of a piece --- ecstasy and epilepsy. This is what messiahship is all about: being in the midst of the poor, the sick, the helpless, those with frothing mouths. Messiahship --- just like Christian living --- is not just "mountaintop experiences" or "acts of concern for human welfare":  it is a necessary combination of the two.]]


 I am grateful to have been present for the reading of this brief reflection yesterday. It was a very powerful moment for me: affirming, shaking, a little tearful, challenging,  and consoling all at once.  Pentecost continues bestowing its unsettling and sustaining gifts of wind and fire. In the power of the Spirit and from the perspective of the Kingdom --- it is all of a piece:  Mountaintop experiences and years in the desert; a power made perfect in weakness; a  bit of human brokenness and poverty made a gift to others by the whole-making grace of God; mute isolation  transfigured into the rich communion and communicative silence of solitude; a life redeemed and enriched by love. It is all of a piece ---  epilepsy and ecstasy. I am grateful to have learned that. In fact, I am grateful to have needed and been called to learn that!