On Eremitical Hiddenness: Witnessing to the Journey to Deeper Union with God

[[Hi Sister Laurel, I wondered what it is that hermits witness to, especially since they live in solitude. Do hermits witness with the hiddenness of their lives? I think you have said something like that and it sounds nonsensical to me. At least I don't get it! I mean how can someone witness to something with the hiddenness of their life? (I guess if they are witnessing to hiddenness, then they do that with hiddenness, but that seems really silly to me.) But really, what is it hermits are most concerned with witnessing to? Do you do this in your solitude?]]

Thanks for your questions. Sometimes the paradoxes involved in Christianity seem silly or absurd, at least initially. I definitely understand that. Imagine trying to explain to someone without a sense of paradox how it is that "power is made perfect in weakness" (2 Cor 12:9) without that leading to some kind of oppressive and dehumanizing dynamic between the weak and the powerful in the equation or relationship! Or, imagine trying to tell some folks that poverty is really a form of wealth essential to human wholeness. Understanding the truth and wisdom of such assertions requires a sense of paradox, an ability to think in terms of paradox, and the ability to live at peace with and even in it. This is so because human existence is paradoxical, and paradoxes like these are some of the most important truths we are asked to grasp and, more importantly, allow ourselves to be grasped by. (At the top of the "paradox food chain," we Christians live from the conviction that a crucified Messiah is not only NOT the height of failure, literal godlessness, and offensiveness to Divine holiness, but is instead the epitome of human integrity, commitment to meaningful life, and the glorification of a loving, merciful God.) 

At the heart of our lives,  our Christian faith and vocations, is the absolute Mystery that (or who) we cannot comprehend in the way we might other realities we know. This is Mystery that we must allow ourselves to be known by instead (cf Galatians 4:8-11). Similarly, then, the paradox of witnessing to something precisely in the hiddenness of our lives represents a profound truth that hermits allow to take hold of them more deeply, and to define their lives and vocations more and more fully and completely. So, what is it hermits witness to, and why does this happen in hiddenness? To sharpen your questions somewhat, I might also ask why it is that the real heart of an eremitical journey can never be seen by others, even when it is something a hermit witnesses to with her life? Why is it that authentic hermits affirm that no one outside this vocation can really understand it? Why doesn't the Church require anonymity from her c 603 hermits, and why does she mark them and their vocations out in the various ways she does as something to be esteemed? Or, in other words, what is the Mystery the Church so regards that stands at the heart of the eremitical vocation that requires the paradoxical description, "revealed in hiddenness"?

In the past year or so, I have written more directly about the journey or pilgrimage hermits make to union with God, or, (probably a better way of describing this journey) toward deeper union with God. I say this is the better way of describing this because in our deepest self, we are already united with God, and our pilgrimage is one we make toward not only that deepest self, but the God who is its ground and source. To speak of human beings as sinful is to affirm we are estranged from that deepest self as well as from God (and from the rest of God's creation). The hermit commits to spending her life in pilgrimage to recover and live this profound truth that stands at the heart of her being. As she does this, she gradually brings all that she has experienced and all that she is to God so that her whole self may be redeemed by God's love. This is the inner journey no one sees, the journey no one can see. It is the pilgrimage that is always only partly clear to the hermit herself, the obscure but compelling journey she undertakes in faith and response to the often profoundly mysterious call of God into Mystery itself. And, of course, it is the heart of the eremitical journey, the only thing that could possibly make sense of its solitude and other forms of asceticism, its turn from much of God's good creation and its essential renunciation (or at least the relativization) of active ministry in visible service to others and to the Church.

While it is true that the hermit witnesses to hiddenness, she only does so secondarily. What comes first is the journey itself. It is a necessarily hidden journey into the depths of human yearning and fulfillment. The same can be said for a hermit's service of God, others, the Church, and this vocation. The hermit who lives her vocation well certainly serves all of these. Her life is, avowedly, a life of service. However, it is only this insofar as it puts the hidden journey to deeper union with God first. Service to others is not unimportant in the eremitical vocation; at the same time, it is an obscure service, often neither seen nor understood by others, because its heart is the mysterious inner journey no one can see or comprehend except analogously in light of their own inner pilgrimage to redemption and deeper union with God. 

When the Church discerns the presence of eremitical vocations in myself or others, what it is looking for are signs that the person is seeking God and is capable of committing their life to this specific quest as primary and definitive. That is, it and the yearning that underlies it must come before everything else and define every dimension of the hermit's life. Additionally, the church looks to see if the person is able and committed to making this pilgrimage in and to "the silence of solitude" for the sake of the Gospel and in the name of the Church. Because the journey to deeper union with God involves the healing and redemption of the whole person, the overcoming of the estrangement of sin and growth in genuine holiness, there will be signs that such persons have turned, and continue to turn more profoundly and completely, from that which is resistant or opposed to Christ (i.e., what is often unhelpfully called "the world") and have allowed themselves to be embraced by the God of life, love, selflessness, and grace. Such a vocation is a microcosm of the foundational vocation of the Church itself, and it summarizes the nature of human existence as well. (Cf Ponam In Deserto Viam, paragraph 15 and the Catechism of the Catholic Church, pars 920-21) Again, it is a hidden reality --- though it bears witness to itself in the fruit associated with it. 

When Thomas Merton spoke of this foundational calling, he referred to the primary responsibility of the hermit:  [[. . . to live happily without affectation in his solitude.]] Merton continued, [[(the Hermit) owes this not only to himself but to his community that has gone so far as to give him a chance to live it out. . . . this is the chief obligation of the . . .hermit because, as I said above, it can restore to others their faith in certain latent possibilities of nature and of grace.]] (Contemplation in a World of Action, p. 242) And here, in the reference to "certain latent possibilities of nature and grace", we also see what the hermit witnesses to, namely, the potential of each and every human life to reveal the essential unity that exists between God and the human person, that is, the essential relationship that makes a human being truly human. Hermits seek deeper union with God not only because Emmanuel (God With Us) is who God is and wills to be, but because Emmanuel also defines the nature of truly human existence. 

Merton described the hermit's pilgrimage as one of a profound seeking and exploration of Mystery that can only be done in hiddenness. Because this solitude is universal (all persons exist as made for God and estranged from God at the same time), some persons are called to witness to the pilgrimage every person is meant to make so that hope may triumph over despair in every life. As I have noted before, Merton writes, [[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.]] (The Monastic Journey, pages 169-173, section published posthumously)

And here is a central clue as to why the Church esteems eremitical vocations today. In their rarity, these vocations represent calls to authentic humanity that are lived out for the sake of others and the Gospel of Jesus Christ. They witness to the universal call to union with God, and they do so with a directness and salience other vocations lack. (In saying this, I do not mean to denigrate the rich witness of other vocations that also depend upon degrees of union with God for their fruitfulness. However, it seems to me that eremitical life cannot be justified in any other way, except in terms of the universal yearning for and call to union with God, not in terms of active ministry, education, social service, pastoral ministry, direct service to the poor, etc.) Eremitical life is ALL about the mysterious hidden journey every human person is called to make to deeper union with God, and to be who we are in light of that journey with, to, and into ultimate Mystery. Rich or poor, educated or uneducated, powerful or powerless, celebrated or shrouded in obscurity, every person has been uniquely gifted with this same precious identity and calling.

In (perhaps) the most direct or dedicated way possible, where contemplative lives prioritize being over doing, eremitical life witnesses to the solitary call to be truly human in and with God by allowing God to be God With Us as completely as God wills. If one wants to understand what hermits DO with their lives, what it is that makes their lives so valuable to the Church and world, perhaps the best answer is that they are persons who are singularly focused on learning to BE themselves and to let God be God. In hermits, we find an unambiguous exemplar of ordinary human life given over to union with God and leading in its own way to the healing and fulfillment of reality that can only occur in communion with the Divine. Hermits witness to this profound and foundational giftedness and task, even when so many of their discrete gifts remain (and must remain) relatively unused, undeveloped, or relinquished entirely. Moreover, it is in the complete ordinariness and inner nature of this incarnational journey that the profoundly purposeful hiddenness of eremitical life is revealed (made known and made real in space and time). It is an incredible and divinely authored paradox that reminds us of all the other paradoxes that are so central to Christianity!! In and with Christ, in the power of the Spirit, this is who the hermit is called to be.

I hope this response is helpful. As always, if it raises more questions or fails to respond adequately to others, please get back to me, and I will revisit these.

Sister Laurel, Whom Does it Hurt? (Reprise)

 [[Dear Sister Laurel, why does it bother you so much if someone who is Catholic wants to live like a hermit and is not consecrated by the Church wants to call themselves a Catholic Hermit? I'm sure some people don't know that the term is a technical one or that canon law applies to the use of the term Catholic in this sort of thing. And so what? Why not let people just do as they wish? Who does it hurt anyway? I think you are hung up on this and need to let it go --- after all, really what does it matter in the grand scheme of things except for those who, like you, seem to be hung up on minutiae? (I'm betting you won't post this question but thanks for answering it if you do!)]]

Thanks for your questions. Almost everything I write about on this blog, whether it has to do with the commitments made by the hermit, the canon(s) governing her life, approaches to writing a Rule of Life, the rights, obligations, and expectations associated with her vocation, the nature and significance of ecclesial vocations like this one, the nature of authentic humanity and the witness value of the hermit's life, the hope she is called to mediate to those who live lives marginalized by chronic illness and disability, the discernment and formation associated with the vocation, or the importance of elders and mentors in her life (and other topics) --- all of this speaks either explicitly or implicitly to the meaning and importance of the much more than technical term Catholic Hermit. That said, some posts will deal with your questions as central to understanding this specific eremitical vocation. These will most often be found under the labels:  ecclesial vocation(s),  silence of solitude as charism,  and rights and obligations of canon 603 vocations (and variations thereof). Since I cannot reprise everything written in the past 14 years of blogging on these topics, I would suggest you read or reread some of those posts.

Let me point out that it may well be that in our country and even in our world today the truth doesn't much matter and individualism is the way of life most value. Similarly, it may well be that liberty has edged out genuine freedom in such a world and generosity been supplanted by a "me first", "win at any cost" philosophy and corresponding set of values. Similarly, our world seems to have forgotten that what some decry as "socialism" today was identified in the New Testament's Acts of the Apostles as the only true shape of  community in the new Family (or Kingdom) of God in Christ.  (cf Acts 2:44-45) Christianity has never truly been the most popular or pervasive way of living in our world --- even when most folks went by the name "Christian"; still, Christianity is built on truth and this truth leads to a responsible freedom marked by generosity and humble (lovingly truthful) service to others. Countercultural as that may be, the place which stands right at the point of sharpest conflict with the values of the contemporary world is the life of the canonical (consecrated) hermit.

The hermit's life is both most easily misunderstood and most easily distorted in living. The freedom of the hermit can slide into a selfish libertinism, its individuality can devolve into a "me first" individualism, and its lack of an active apostolic ministry can be mistaken quite easily for selfishness and a refusal to serve others. Those who neither understand the nature of the life, nor the Church's role in ensuring that these distortions do not occur, will ask the kinds of questions you pose in your query. They are not the folks I generally write about -- though their ignorance of this calling can be problematical.  Others who are equally ignorant of the distinctions which stand between world and Kingdom of God will valorize their own selfish individualism with the name "hermit" and some of these will, even when initial ignorance has been corrected, insist on calling themselves "Catholic Hermits" despite never having been called by the Church to live this life in her name, and despite being unprepared and sometimes unwilling to accept the rights and obligations incumbent upon someone petitioning the Church for admission to public profession and consecration. It is these I call counterfeit or even fraudulent for they have taken ignorance and raised it to the level of lie.

Whom Does it Hurt?

Whom does it hurt? First of all it hurts the vocation itself. There is no more stark example of the truth of the way God relates to human beings than when a hermit stands face to face with God in the solitude of her cell and praises God for her life, her call to holiness, the challenge to love ever more deeply, and consents to be a witness to a God who desires to be everything for us because (he) values us beyond all imagining. It is even more striking because she says this is true no matter how poor, how broken or wounded, how sinful or shamed, and how seemingly unproductive her life is in a world marked by consumerism and an exaggerated focus on productivity --- a world which very much values the opposite of all of these challenging realities (brokenness, woundedness, etc.) and considers the hermit to be "nothing" and "a waste of skin". In Christ, the hermit stands before God consenting to be the imago dei she was made to be, entirely transparent to God's truth, beauty, and love, and says with her life that this is the common call of every person. Quite a precious witness! For someone to call themselves a Catholic Hermit when the Church herself has not discerned or admitted her to a public eremitical commitment is to strip away the humble commitment to the truth which is meant to be part of the vocation's foundation and to insert self-definition and self-centeredness in its place. Those who look to this person as an example of the Church's vision of eremitical life may find that, rather than a "Catholic Hermit," they are faced instead with the validation of many of the same distortions and stereotypes that have plagued eremitical life throughout the centuries. They will likely find, if they scratch below the surface, a core of worldliness, deep hunger and fear covered with a veneer of piety.

What they will not find is a person who humbly accepts her poverty before God insofar as this means accepting the vocation to which one is truly called. Lay (non-canonical) eremitical life is profoundly meaningful and important in the life of the church; it should be honestly embraced in that way. A secondary result can be that the Church herself (in individual dioceses) will refuse to consider professing diocesan hermits at all; the vocation is a rare one with, relatively speaking, very few authentic examples; fraudulent "hermits" who represent distortions, stereotypes, and caricatures (as well as sometimes being nutcases and liars) unfortunately can serve to cast doubt on the entire vocation leading to dioceses refusing to give those seeking profession any real hearing at all.

Secondly, it hurts those who most need the witness of this specific vocation, namely those who for whatever reason find themselves unable to compete with the world on its own terms: the chronically ill, disabled, and otherwise marginalized who may believe the world's hype that wealth is measured in terms of goods and social status, able-bodiedness, youth, productivity, and so forth.  Hermits say to these people that they are valued beyond all reckoning by a God who knows them inside out. Hermits say to these people that real wealth is measured in terms of love and that one of the most precious symbols of Christianity is that of treasure contained in clay pots, while real strength is perfected and most fully revealed in weakness. To attempt to witness to the truth of the Gospel by living a lie and building it into the foundation of one's eremitical life destroys the capacity of the "hermit" to witness effectively to these truths. To proclaim the fundamental truth that in Christianity real treasure is contained in clay pots is made impossible if one refuses to be the pot one has been made by the potter to be (a lay hermit, for instance) but claims instead to be something else (e.g., a consecrated Catholic Hermit).

Thirdly, it hurts the one doing the lying or misrepresentation, especially if she actually comes to believe her own lies. In this way, her capacity for truth, humility, generosity, and gratitude is all equally injured --- and thus, too, her own authenticity as a human being. We cannot image God as we are called if we cannot accept ourselves or the vocation to which he calls us. And finally, it hurts the Church herself, which is responsible for all that goes on "in her name" and for commissioning those who live eremitical life in this way.

As part of this injury to the Church, it may hurt anyone who is influenced by the fraudulent "Catholic Hermit" in her lies and misrepresentations. Sometimes this happens because the person follows the directions the counterfeit gives to "become a Catholic Hermit" and then, after spending time following this advice and building hopes on a false dream or pathway to realize their dream, is confronted by their parish or diocese with the truth of the matter. Terrible damage can be done in this way, just as it is done to those who are scandalized by the disedifying example of "hermits" who embody all the worst stereotypes associated with eremitical life, whether canonical or non-canonical. Unfortunately, the individual fraudulent "Catholic Hermit" is ordinarily not held nearly as responsible as the Church is in such cases, so the damage or injury can be far-reaching and relatively ungovernable.

Summary:

I am bothered by all of this because I see the value in eremitical life, most particularly as it stands as a witness against the distorted notions of humanity and community so prevalent in today's world. I am bothered by this because I am committed to live this vocation well for the sake of others,  but especially for the sake of God and God's Church, which is the steward of this vocation. I care so much because I have come to know how important this vocation is --- especially as a countercultural witness to the nature of authentic human existence and all the things the world puts up as values today. Finally, I care because God has called me to care, and to embody this caring in my own living, witnessing, teaching, mentoring, direction, and prayer. I care because the truth matters and because God and God's Church care even as they commissioned me to do so as well. 

You may consider this a personal "hang-up" of mine. That's not a problem, and you are free to your opinion, but if you wish me to "let it go," I would note that I am responding to your questions here, and your questions prompt me to think about and even research it further --- not the best way to get me to let go of something! You also used the term minutia, and I would ask you to consider what portions of my response deal with minutia; I don't see anything in all of this that is not significant in many ways for many, many people, and the witness of the Church as a whole. My answer to the question, [[Whom does it hurt?]] would have to be anyone such dishonesty or fraud touches, even if they are not aware of it at the time. The Church is to minister truly and to assist others to live the truth of their deepest selves in Christ. That is made much more difficult when fraud and dishonesty are enacted or purported to be enacted in the name of that same Church. In a world hungry for truth, no one, I would argue, is untouched by this.

On Vatican II and the Value of Contemplative and Eremitical Life

[[Sister Laurel, it seems to me that Vatican II asked Christians to turn toward the world in service. In this way, we got a lot of service from the laity, which was very good. What I wondered was what that did to the contemplative life and even to esteem for contemplative prayer amongst the laity? Did it have an effect, or was it all kind of neutral? I am asking because you said few people understand your vocation, and I wondered if Vatican II had a part in causing that. For instance, you write against a notion of fleeing from the world when world means God's good creation, and I think I understand this, but how does contemplative life serve the world? Did Vatican II sort of cut the legs out from under esteem for the contemplative life?]]

What really great observations and questions! While some, including Thomas Merton, suggested he perceived a developing "activistic, antimystical, and antimetaphysical Christian consciousness leading Christians 'to repudiate all aspiration to personal contemplative union with God and to deep mystical experience, because [among other things] this is a pagan evasion, [and] an individualistic escape from community, '" others point to the very strong statement of Vatican II, "The contemplative life belongs to the fullness of the Church's presence" as part of their disagreement with Merton's position. Vatican II also took steps to preserve papal cloister and in the document on Religious Life supported contemplative life while asking that outdated customs and practices be pruned from the life. On balance I would say that Vatican II preserved contemplative life and required attention to what would invigorate or reinvigorate it, even as the Church, in response to the entirety of the council's writings and thrust, took a different and more incarnational perspective on the nature of the secular world.

Some of the Contributions of Vatican II

I do agree that while Vatican II wrote in ways that would preserve and stress the Church's esteem for contemplative life, the accent on apostolic service or ministry had consequences that were not wholly anticipated. So did the accent on a (sacred) secularity that reflected God's incarnation in Jesus. This supported the potential sacramentality of the created world and invited humankind to honor the sacred nature of creation, and it softened the gulf between heaven and earth, thus allowing people to think in terms of the new heaven and new earth being established right here and right now in light of Jesus' death, resurrection, and ascension. Heaven and earth were seen by Scripture scholars and theologians to interpenetrate one another, and this implied letting go of a focus on "getting to heaven" while "fleeing the world"; it meant embracing more of what Rahner called a mysticism of ordinary life. This shift changed approaches to contemplative life to some degree,  but my sense is that it led to healthier and less elitist notions of contemplative and eremitical life.

It is true that Vatican II was confronted with specific interventions on behalf of eremitical life, and while the council did not establish eremitic life directly as a state of perfection as Bp Remi de Roo called for, the revised Code of Canon Law, which was also part of the council's mandate, made room for this with c 603. Still, while Vatican II did not take a direct stance on eremitical life, it did considerably strengthen the Church's dependence on Scripture, and this implied not only a recovery of the desert tradition and its strong accent on encounter with God in the silence of solitude, but also the importance of a deep prayer life accompanying and underpinning any active ministry. Jesus' own life, especially as portrayed in the Gospel of Luke, gave us a strong theology of hospitality, including the importance of hospitality to the God who would be Emmanuel in silent and individual prayer. This strong emphasis on the importance of Scripture in the life of the Church also gave us the robust incarnational theology noted above.

Even Thomas Merton's criticism of Vatican II's influence was countered by his "turn to the world" and his reworking of the way the contemplative or the solitary life is related to and serves the world --- itself a clear theme at Vatican II. That was anticipated and prepared for by Merton's epiphany at 4th and Walnut on the streets of Louisville just a few years before the council. This epiphany was the root of his turn to the world, his rethinking of vocations to the silence of solitude, and his appreciation of the universality of calls to contemplation. It just took some time for this new plant to blossom, but my sense is it flowered in the soil of Vatican II, which, in her appreciation of the goodness of God's creation and in her universal call to holiness, did indeed take a new and non-dualistic view of "the world". For all these reasons, I would have to say Vatican II's esteem for and protection of contemplative life more generally, and eremitic life more specifically, though often accomplished indirectly, is well established. 

Justifying the Existence of Contemplative and Eremitical Life:

In other words, I would suggest that any failure to esteem contemplative life generally and eremitical life more specifically comes from somewhere other than Vatican II itself, and that makes me wonder if contemplative life hasn't always been misunderstood in some significant ways, not least by drawing a hard line between heaven and earth and treating the world outside the monastery or hermitage as profane. In any case, I would argue that the reasons for this are not due to Vatican II itself. So, how does contemplative life generally, and solitary eremitical life more specifically, serve the Church and the larger world? How can we justify its existence, especially if it is not escapist or individualistic? I have been writing about this under the label, "existential solitude", or interior solitude,  and the call to explore this, so let me just summarize my position on this here.

Every human being is constituted in a state of existential solitude. This solitude is inviolable, and no one can enter into it with us, no matter how close our relationship with them is. This state of existential solitude means that at the depths of our being, in the very center of our lives, we exist alone with God (though most people may be consciously unaware of God dwelling in the depths of their being). Whether we are consciously aware of this or not, this is how we are constituted as human beings, and it is in coming to terms with this specific solitude that we become authentic human beings capable of loving God, ourselves, and others. (By the way, this foundational relationship, which is intrinsic to human existence, is the source of the Church's teaching on the inviolability of conscience.) Contemplatives, and especially hermits, are committed to plumbing the depths of this existential solitude, to finding God there where he resides closer to us than we are even to ourselves, and witnessing for the sake of others to both God and the nature of authentic human being. 

When Benedictines, for example, enter a monastery, they do so to "seek God". They do this not because God is not "out there" in the world, or because God is tucked away here in this monastery, needing to be found in the sacred place rather than the profane world! No! In light of the Christ Event, both the monastery and "the world" are sacred places! Instead, people come to the monastery to seek God because he is within us, deep, deep within us, and because the journey to the depths of ourselves takes time, patience, courage, determination, encouragement, and thus, various forms of structure and support. In particular, it takes the faith community and sacramental life of the Church along with the canonical structures, which provide for a stable state of life in which this journey to the depths of our being may be securely undertaken. The Church serves the c 603 hermit in this way so that s/he may undertake this journey that reveals human beings (and God as well) for who they really are. 

There are so many sources of (mis)understanding regarding what constitutes truly human existence in our world today. The hermit and contemplative life provide one radically countercultural definition. This vision stresses every person's existential aloneness and, at the same time, the communal nature of every human life. Merton was worried Vatican II would destroy any sense we each have that the inner journey to the center of ourselves must be made by every person in whatever state of life they live their humanity. When he used terms like, "activistic, antimystical, and antimetaphysical Christian consciousness", he was concerned individuals would no longer see the quest for union with God as essential to every Christian life, no matter the value of their active ministry. 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. Contemplatives, and especially hermits, live our lives dedicated to the dialogue with God that constitutes the core of authentic humanity. We each make this profound and profoundly humanizing journey over long years, and witness to this constitutive relationship for the sake of all of God's creation. That is the primary value of our lives.

Returning to "i am a little church" as a Source of Contemplation

 Dear Sister Laurel, many thanks for putting up e e cummings i am a little church!! I have been thinking about the imagery and how well it fits a hermit. I don't live out in the country or near mountains but as a hermit, I think I understand what e e cummings was saying --- even if he was not writing about hermits himself. For example, I love the line about the perfect patience of mountains or "winter by spring i lift my diminutive spire to/ merciful him Whose only now is forever!! They are images of eremitical life!! Does that make sense?? What are your favorite lines?

Oh yes! It makes wonderful sense! Thanks for sharing. I agree with you completely and love the entire poem. All of the lines have struck me profoundly at one time or another. Right now, because of work I am doing in direction it is, perhaps, the last line that has resonated within me most this past week  ---(welcoming humbly His light and proudly His darkness). What I am coming to know deeply is that there is a profound rhythm to human growth and while I love God's light I am coming more and more to trust the darkness as well, because (as Bonhoeffer says) while "not everything is the will of God,. . . nothing is outside the will of God," and God does indeed bring light out of darkness so that even evil can become the source of grace. And sometimes, of course, the darkness is our own, for many different reasons. We cannot know the whole plan of God in our lives; sometimes we see light whereas other times we only see darkness. The ability to stand tall in both is surely a grace of genuine humility; for me this line encapsulates the very goal, not only of spiritual direction, but of spiritual life as a whole.

The other piece of this poem, that I think fits eremitical life very well is the following verse: around me surges a miracle of unceasing/birth and glory and death and resurrection:/over my sleeping self float flaming symbols/of hope,and i wake to a perfect patience of mountains. Because of Peter Damian's cosmology I am reminded that contemporary theologians and spiritual writers remind us we are made of "star stuff". Each hermit carries within herself that miracle of unceasing birth and death and find echoed within us the flaming symbols, the stars, that cummings envisions floating above us as we sleep (or pray). 

And each day is a new opportunity to share in the amazing life and dynamism of life with and in God who creates, sustains, and recreates us every single day by minute by second by nanosecond. I certainly do not have the perfect patience of mountains, but they speak to me of this call to monastic (eremitical) stability. Especially, I recognize that the rhythm of monastic and eremitical life helps situate us with the deeper rhythms of the cosmos and helps us hope in God despite the "smaller rhythms" that make us either fear change or align ourselves with the chaos of our world's disorder or the frenetic pace and choices of the adrenaline junkie!! Situating ourselves within this deeper rhythm and accepting we have a significant place in it despite our fragility and the apparent fleetingness of our lives, it seems to me, is the source of perfect patience.

Anyway, I love this poem and and the way it reflects on the mysteries of life. Almost any line speaks to me of God and eremitical life, of finding ourselves witnessing to the larger perspective of eternity and the ultimate security we share because of life in God. The verse I therefore come back to often is this one: i am a little church(far from the frantic/ world with its rapture and anguish)at peace with nature/ -i do not worry if longer nights grow longest;/i am not sorry when silence becomes singing. I found it spoke to me when I was younger and it speaks to me now in a different way when I am older. I always found silence culminating in singing, whether that was the way Office was chanted well because it grew out of silence, because of the way the rests in a line of sound create music (remember, I am a violinist), or, much more personally, because I as a person moved from a kind of muteness (and sometimes being a scream of anguish) to becoming the very different "language event" I associate with Mary's Magnificat. 

And finally, there is the verse that captures the profound way eremitical life is a life of deep compassion and bonds with every part of God's creation in and through God!! my life is the life of the reaper and the sower;/my prayers are prayers of earth's own clumsily striving/(finding and losing and laughing and crying)children/whose any sadness or joy is my grief or my gladness. For me, one of the greatest gifts of eremitical life has been growth in compassion -- in the ability to feel and share in the suffering of the world so that I might also be able to convey the hope of God in ways that convince with its authenticity. And like cummings, I have come to this clumsily. receiving, giving, sometimes harvesting, other times experiencing drought, in both joy and discouragement (or other suffering). Cummings was always concerned with the truly human person, and when I apply what he said to hermits, it is because we are striving for the same thing cummings so esteemed! One way to define Jesus is as the compassionate One, the truly human being who suffers for and with others. I think this verse of cumming's i am a little church captures this really well!

So much more could be said about this poem and the gift it is to the person of faith!! So much more could be said about the way it echoes the Magnificat (or the Te Deum!!) of the hermit life!!! But I will leave this here for now. I originally offered this poem as an incentive to contemplation. Thank you for taking it in that direction and for allowing me to return to that as well!!!

Sister Laurel, Whom Does it Hurt?

[[Dear Sister Laurel, why does it bother you so much if someone who is Catholic wants to live like a hermit and is not consecrated by the Church wants to call themselves a Catholic Hermit? I'm sure some people don't know that the term is a technical one or that canon law applies to the use of the term Catholic in this sort of thing. And so what? Why not let people just do as they wish? Who does it hurt anyway? I think you are hung up on this and need to let it go --- after all, really what does it matter in the grand scheme of things except for those who, like you, seem to be hung up on minutiae? (I'm betting you won't post this question but thanks for answering it if you do!)]]

Thanks for your questions. Almost everything I write about on this blog, whether it has to do with the commitments made by the hermit, the canon(s) governing her life, approaches to writing a Rule of Life, the rights, obligations, and expectations associated with her vocation, the nature and significance of ecclesial vocations like this one, the nature of authentic humanity and the witness value of the hermit's life, the hope she is called to mediate to those who live lives marginalized by chronic illness and disability, the discernment and formation associated with the vocation, or the importance of elders and mentors in her life (and other topics) --- all of this speaks either explicitly or implicitly to the meaning and importance of the much more than technical term Catholic Hermit. That said, some posts will deal with your questions as central to understanding this specific eremitical vocation. These will most often be found under the labels:  ecclesial vocation(s),  silence of solitude as charism,  and rights and obligations of canon 603 vocations (and variations thereof). Since I cannot reprise everything written in the past 14 years of blogging on these topics, I would suggest you read or reread some of those posts.

Let me point out that it may well be that in our country and even in our world today the truth doesn't much matter and individualism is the way of life most value. Similarly, it may well be that liberty has edged out genuine freedom in such a world and generosity been supplanted by a "me first", "win at any cost" philosophy and corresponding set of values. Similarly, our world seems to have forgotten that what some decry as "socialism" today was identified in the New Testament's Acts of the Apostles as the only true shape of  community in the new Family (or Kingdom) of God in Christ.  (cf Acts 2:44-45) Christianity has never truly been the most popular or pervasive way of living in our world --- even when most folks went by the name "Christian"; still, Christianity is built on truth and this truth leads to a responsible freedom marked by generosity and humble (lovingly truthful) service to others. Countercultural as that may be, the place which stands right at the point of sharpest conflict with the values of the contemporary world is the life of the canonical (consecrated) hermit.

The hermit's life is both most easily misunderstood and most easily distorted in living. The freedom of the hermit can slide into a selfish libertinism, its individuality can devolve into a "me first" individualism, and its lack of an active apostolic ministry can be mistaken quite easily for selfishness and a refusal to serve others. Those who neither understand the nature of the life, nor the Church's role in ensuring that these distortions do not occur, will ask the kinds of questions you pose in your query. They are not the folks I generally write about -- though their ignorance of this calling can be problematical.  Others who are equally ignorant of the distinctions which stand between world and Kingdom of God will valorize their own selfish individualism with the name "hermit" and some of these will, even when initial ignorance has been corrected, insist on calling themselves "Catholic Hermits" despite never having been called by the Church to live this life in her name, and despite being unprepared and sometimes unwilling to accept the rights and obligations incumbent upon someone petitioning the Church for admission to public profession and consecration. It is these I call counterfeit or even fraudulent for they have taken ignorance and raised it to the level of lie.

Whom Does it Hurt?

Whom does it hurt? First of all it hurts the vocation itself. There is no more stark example of the truth of the way God relates to human beings than when a hermit stands face to face with God in the solitude of her cell and praises God for her life, her call to holiness, the challenge to love ever more deeply, and consents to be a witness to a God who desires to be everything for us because (he) values us beyond all imagining. It is even more striking because she says this is true no matter how poor, how broken or wounded, how sinful or shamed, and how seemingly unproductive her life is in a world marked by consumerism and an exaggerated focus on productivity --- a world which very much values the opposite of all of these and considers the hermit to be "nothing" and "a waste of skin". In Christ, the hermit stands before God consenting to be the imago dei she was made to be, entirely transparent to God's truth, beauty, and love, and says with her life that this is the common call of every person. Quite a precious witness!

For someone to call themselves a Catholic Hermit when the Church herself has not discerned or admitted her to a public eremitical commitment is to strip away the humble commitment to the truth which is meant to be part of the vocation's foundation and to insert self-definition and self-centeredness in its place. Those who look to this person as an example of the Church's vision of eremitical life may find  that rather than a "Catholic Hermit" they are faced instead with the validation of  many of the same distortions and stereotypes plaguing eremitical life throughout the centuries. 

What they will not find is a person who humbly accepts her poverty before God insofar as this means accepting the vocation to which one is truly called. Lay (non-canonical) eremitical life is profoundly meaningful and important in the life of the church; it should be honestly embraced in that way. A secondary result can be that the Church herself (in individual dioceses) will refuse to consider professing diocesan hermits at all; the vocation is a rare one with, relatively speaking, very few authentic examples; fraudulent "hermits" who represent distortions, stereotypes, and caricatures (as well as sometimes being nutcases and liars) unfortunately can serve to cast doubt on the entire vocation leading to dioceses refusing to give those seeking profession any real hearing at all.

Secondly, it hurts those who most need the witness of this specific vocation, namely those who for whatever reason find themselves unable to compete with the world on its own terms: the chronically ill, disabled, and otherwise marginalized who may believe the world's hype that wealth is measured in terms of goods and social status, able-bodiedness, youth, productivity, and so forth.  Hermits say to these people that they are valued beyond all reckoning by a God who knows them inside out. Hermits say to these people that real wealth is measured in terms of love and that one of the most precious symbols of Christianity is that of treasure contained in clay pots, while real strength is perfected and most fully revealed in weakness. To attempt to witness to the truth of the Gospel by living a lie and building it into the foundation of one's eremitical life destroys the capacity of the hermit to witness effectively to these truths. To proclaim the fundamental truth that in Christianity real treasure is contained in clay pots is made impossible if one refuses to be the pot one has been made by the potter to be (a lay hermit, for instance) but claims instead to be something else (e.g., a consecrated Catholic Hermit).

Thirdly, it hurts the one doing the lying or misrepresentation, especially if she actually comes to believe her own lies. In this way her capacity for truth, humility, generosity, and gratitude are all equally injured --- and thus too, her own authenticity as a human being. We cannot image God as we are called if we cannot accept ourselves or the vocation to which he calls us. And finally, it hurts the Church herself who is responsible for all that goes on "in her name" and for commissioning those who live eremitical life in this way.

As part of this injury to the Church, it may hurt anyone who is influenced by the fraudulent "Catholic Hermit" in her lies and misrepresentations. Sometimes this happens because the person follows the directions the counterfeit gives to "become a Catholic Hermit" and then, after spending time following this advice and building hopes on a false dream or pathway to realize their dream, is confronted by one's parish or diocese with the truth of the matter. Terrible damage can be done in this way just as it is done to those who are scandalized by the disedifying example of "hermits" who embody all the worst stereotypes associated with eremitical life, whether canonical or non-canonical. Unfortunately, the individual fraudulent "Catholic Hermit" is ordinarily not held nearly as responsible as the Church is in such cases so the damage or injury can be far-reaching and relatively ungovernable.

Summary:

I am bothered by all of this because I see the value in eremitical life, most particularly as it stands as a witness against the distorted notions of humanity and community so prevalent in today's world. I am bothered by this because I am committed to live this vocation well for the sake of others,  but especially for the sake of God and God's Church who is the steward of this vocation. I care so much because I have come to know how important this vocation is --- especially as a countercultural witness to the nature of authentic human existence and all the things the world puts up as values today. Finally, I care because God has called me to care, and to embody this caring in my own living, witnessing, teaching, mentoring, direction, and prayer. I care because the truth matters and because God and God's Church care even as they commissioned me to do so as well. 

You may consider this a personal "hang up" of mine. That's not a problem and you are free to your opinion, but if you wish me to "let it go," I would note that I am responding to your questions here, and your questions prompt me to think about and even research it further --- not the best way to get me to let go of something! You also used the term minutia, and I would ask you to consider what portions of my response deal with minutia; I don't see anything in all of this that is not significant in many ways for many, many, people and the witness of the Church as a whole. My answer to the question, [[Whom does it hurt?]] would have to be anyone such dishonesty or fraud touches, even if they are not aware of it at the time. The Church is to minister truly and to assist others to live the truth of their deepest selves in Christ. That is made much more difficult when fraud and dishonesty are enacted or purported to be enacted in the name of that same Church. In a world hungry for truth, no one, I would argue, is untouched by this.

Clarification: Are you Saying We must Deny our Suffering?

[[Dear Sister, you are not saying a person must hide or deny their illness or suffering are you? I know you read [Joyful Hermit's] blog and she seems to believe you (or maybe it's someone else she reads) are saying that one ought to hide their suffering or illness.]]

Yes, I read Joyful Hermit's blog and if she is referring to my position on the place of suffering in a hermit's witness, she seems to have seriously misread or misunderstood it. In any case, I am certainly not saying one must hide or deny their illness and suffering --- although there will assuredly be times when revealing these is not helpful and may even be harmful or destructive to the witness one is called to give. One must know (discern) when such times are and be able to act appropriately. What I have said very clearly instead, is that one's illness must not define them. It will condition or qualify everything but it cannot be allowed to dominate (note the link to lordship or sovereignty in this word). I have also said that one's illness or suffering must become transparent to the love and life of God. In part this means a hermit's illness or suffering will not obscure the witness to the life and love of God a Canon 603 hermit will give to others. In part, it means it will remain unseen and unspoken of until and unless it can serve the witness to the mercy, love, and life of God we are each called to manifest to others. And in part, it therefore means learning to witness to realities that allow us to transcend our suffering, not by leaving it behind or denying it, but by allowing it to be transfigured in light of the grace and mercy of God. Please note the distinction between sovereignty (defining) and servanthood (conditioning) in these two manifestations of illness or suffering.

We read accounts of the Risen Christ's appearance to others after Jesus' passion and death. We use images of the risen Christ on crucifixes today. Both of these are important in understanding what this learning will look like. Consider that when Jesus appeared to his disheartened and terrified disciples he was not without wounds and scars, even in his risen state. Thomas was invited to put a hand in Jesus' side. Even so, it is not the wounds and scars that dominate the picture. When we look at a crucifix with the risen Christ, the cross and all it represents is clearly present, but it does not dominate what we see or what we are called to believe. In each of these examples of Christian suffering and redemption, it is life, love, and joy that are dominant. The cross conditions everything and, as it should for Christians, it will always do so; after all, with Paul, we believe in a crucified Christ as the source of authentic life and hope. But the cross does not define who Jesus was nor who he is today as God's own Christ. In all of this, the cross is a servant of God's life and love, and it is this life and love which is dominant.

Illness is an incredibly important reality that we must learn to live with and accommodate appropriately, while not allowing it to swallow us up in the process. One of the crucial ways of doing so is by learning to live from and for the life and love of God. This is a difficult process and takes time to achieve. Anyone with a chronic illness knows the ways we learn to accommodate (and, alternately, sometimes even collude with) it. Illness limits but we anticipate these limits and the disappointments that accompany them and, unfortunately, over time we may even begin to limit ourselves. Illness does not do this; we do. Eventually, we will have a whole host of limitations associated with illness and suffering --- many of which can be unlearned and transcended. But it takes something really powerful to encourage and enable us to do this. In my experience, it is the unconditional love of God mediated to me by others as well as in prayer which makes this possible. Yes, there will be significant work in spiritual direction and perhaps even in therapy or in the kind of inner work (PRH) I have spoken of before, but more and more, one's suffering assumes the place of the cross in representations of the risen Christ --- important ("critical" -- pun intended!) but not dominant. A hermit's vocation (and there are a number of us with chronic illnesses!) is to make evident this kind of transparency to the love of God.

I do hope this helps to clarify my position for anyone for whom I failed to be clear. Let me know if it raises more questions.

Cowl as Symbol: Once Again on Becoming the Hermit I Am

About three or four years ago I wrote a piece about God as the Master Weaver/ Master Storyteller God as Master Storyteller . It represented a way of coming to terms with the notion that "There is a reason for everything," without also buying into the naïve notion that God wills everything that occurs or happens to us. It was also a piece of integrating the fact and relatively new theological consideration that we belong to an unfinished and evolving universe; this involves the idea that God creates by summoning or drawing us into the future, into fullness of being and that God represents what theologian Ted Peters calls Absolute Future. Finally it was a way of affirming that in our lives everything can be transfigured by the love of God; no threads will be dropped, none lost or forgotten because, as we celebrate especially with the Feasts of Resurrection and Ascension, we rest securely in the hands and heart of God.

Yesterday I was reading Paulsell's Letters From a Hermit, the story of how Cistercian monk Matthew Kelty became a hermit and I came across the quote found below. It reminded me not only of that article, but also the way God has worked in my own life to create the heart of a hermit and especially during this last year of intense inner work: [[He chose to be alone, "not to nurse his wounds, not to count his victories, but rather quietly to take all the mysterious fabric of [his] life and there [in the hermitage] lay it all out and trace the hand of love that somehow ordered all things, the good and the bad, the crooked and the straight, the bitter and the sweet, the whole of it. . . and then to take the whole thing and throw it over [himself] as a garment woven in love."]] Letters From a Hermit, William Paulsell.

Eremitical life is not the only context in which we can learn to look at our lives in a truly reverent way,  with a truly human and thus, graced perspective. Any person who has worked regularly with a really competent director will be reminded of and confronted with the truth that deeper than any discrete pain or joy, any specific moments of suffering or solace, any individual moments of darkness or light, meaning or senselessness, we are participants in a Mystery which "contextualizes" and makes an ultimate sense of all of these more particular historical realities. A lot of the time what a spiritual director does for us, for instance, especially when we are in the midst of darkness and suffering is to maintain the perspective we lose or cannot adequately maintain at these times. Those of us who have someone who can and does remain in a relatively unobscured contact with the Mystery that grounds us both as we work together through more immediate difficulties, limitations, and yearnings of our life is blessed indeed. In any case, contemplatives of all stripes, hermits, religious women and men (cloistered and apostolic), laity, priests, all know this.

My own sense, however, is that eremitical life especially is ordered to give the hermit the opportunity to do as Matthew Kelty described so well; namely, it provides the very dedicated time and space to remember (and here I mean a deep and active remembering where we actually relive and reappropriate) events from a new perspective --- the perspective of one who knows the eternal and unconditional love of God which is constantly at work to bring good out of evil, life out of death, and meaning out of absurdity. This is the Love-in-Act who undergirds and accompanies us and has always done so, the God who has worked to redeem every moment and mood of our lives and bring us to fullness of existence in and through Christ. The hermit is one who has given everything in order to allow this God to be fully revealed in her life in and through the silence of solitude; she has given everything so that she might "clothe herself" in the Risen Christ without whom her life would be an absurdity and waste, but with and in whom her life is an infinitely valuable reflection of the Gospel. This is the work and witness of eremitical life, the gift the hermit gives to the Church and world in the name of Christ.

As readers here know, a year ago (June 1st) my director and I began an intense form of inner work which allowed a methodical approach to doing precisely this kind of remembering, healing, and growth work. I was clear that in professing and thus commissioning me to live eremitical life in her name, the Church had also implicitly commissioned --- as well as given me the privileged time and space in the silence of solitude --- to undertake this very work. At every point it was my director's "job" to remind me of and help me get or remain in touch with the fact that in spite of every particular period or instance of suffering, pain, darkness, and apparent senselessness we worked through (as well as those of light, profound meaning, and joy) we each stand up out of and embody a deeper source of life, truth, and love that constitutes a foundational or constitutive part of our deepest selves and is our ultimate destiny and absolute future as well.

My director's "job" has been and remains not only to help me heal in the ways I have needed, but above all, to accompany me in this process of journeying deep into memory, deep into self, and help me learn and continue to trace the hand of love that somehow ordered all things; her "job" was to assist me to "trust the process" (give myself over to a process where the hand of love, though often obscured, is and will become, evident) and to grow in my capacity to do that with every part of my Self --- whether in the midst of deep suffering and pain or profound consolation and joy. What I learned anew time and again in this work, what I came to know (in the intimate biblical sense!) and therefore, to trust more and more deeply, was the truth of the Ascension: we rest securely in the hands and heart of God. In Christ we always have been given and always have a place in the very life of God. If we can allow that truth to be the fabric of our lives --- not just their ground and source, but the thread which weaves throughout to structure, and inspire, the cloak with which we are embraced and clothed --- those lives will be utterly transformed and transfigured.

Sometimes putting on my cowl is especially challenging. That is not only because I stand alone in a parish setting where it is probably not well-understood by most people, or because few other Religious I know wear anything remotely similar. More truly, it is because it represents so much eremitical and monastic tradition and history, so much ecclesial trust and responsibility. It is never a garment I take for granted! And now I associate it freshly and more deeply with all of this work. It has become a symbol of it all, and of God's long process in creating the heart of a hermit. During this process my director and I have discerned and been moved in a variety of ways by the Mystery present in, embracing, and also transcending every particularity of my life. Together throughout this privileged time we have traced the hand of Love that orders all things.

My cowl is a smooth, white, wool blend --- and so it will remain. But it is also freshly woven and shot through with all kinds of new colors and textures --- some I never thought could belong to such a garment. Not a thread has been lost, forgotten, or rejected. All of them have been closely and tenderly handled and transfigured by the Mystery I (and my director) know as God. All of them have been worked into what is a sacred garment marking a life which is equally sacred. Through the whole of my life God has been working to create the heart of a hermit and this is a hermit's garment. Each time I pull it on now I will remember Matthew Kelty's challenging: [[. . . and then. . .take the whole thing and throw it over [yourself] as a garment woven in love.]] Each time I pull it on I will be reminded that every moment of my life has been grounded in and embraced by Mystery. Meanwhile this work of healing and "reeducation" --- this process of metanoia! --- continues in response to the call to put on Christ and the Scriptural imperative to [[Remember how for forty [I read sixty-eight!] years now the LORD, your God, has directed all your journeying in the desert. . .]] ***

While in gratitude to God I may see my own situation as privileged, isn't all of this merely one way of undertaking the task we are each given at baptism when we are clothed with a white garment and each day after this challenged to "put on Christ"? Aren't we each grounded in and called to know intimately the Mystery which is the foundation of the universe? Of course. And thanks be to God!!

*** This reading is from the opening to Lection #1 from the Solemnity of Corpus Christi; on Corpus Christi at San Damiano Retreat Center I will don my cowl for Mass where I have the great joy of reading this Lection for the celebration of Franciscan Sister Susan Blomstad's 50th Jubilee. Susan was Vicar for Religious and/or Director of Vocations for the Diocese of Oakland in the first years of the mutual discernment process related to my becoming a c 603 hermit (@1985-1990); later (@ 2006) -- though living and working in another diocese --- she added her recommendation those of Oakland's Vicars re: my admission to perpetual profession and consecration as a Diocesan Hermit of the Diocese of Oakland (Sept 2007).

Today we are friends and share a number of other significant dates, interests, and pieces of background (including Saint Francis and Franciscanism). Not surprisingly we both know the challenges and consolations of the desert and the ways God lovingly weaves and reweaves the threads of our lives into something at once mysterious and miraculous. I hope you will all keep Sister Susan (and the other Jubilarians) in your prayers and thank God for their lives and commitment!

Why is Silence so Important to a Hermit's Witness?

[[Dear Sister, why is silence so important for the witness of a hermit? One hermit's blog writes a lot about hearing God speak to her and getting messages from Saints so I was wondering if that was typical? My pastor has spoken of silence being necessary to hear God speak to us in the depths of our hearts but that seems pretty different to me than having God send messages and making "assignments". Is silence part of the "experience of redemption" you recently said was so central to the hermit's life?]]

Really excellent questions --- especially the last one about the experience of redemption and silence. I think that silence is central to the hermit's experience of redemption and that it is an important piece of the witness she gives for precisely this reason. One of the really difficult experiences accompanying and often intensifying people's sufferings is the apparent silence of God. Folks who leave the Church often complain that their prayers went unanswered, that God was silent and unresponsive. They conclude either that God is unloving or uncaring, or perhaps that God is simply too remote, truly impersonal, and thus too, entirely irrelevant. They may similarly conclude that God is powerless or simply non-existent and that prayer is useless and the result of juvenile or at least naive wishfulness.

Novelists write powerfully about the silence of God and the way God is indicted by this. In the work, Silence, Shusako Endo pits the incredible suffering of the people against the apparent silence of God. Survivors of the Holocaust put God on trial because their prayers were apparently met with silence; they accused God of having failed to keep the covenant God had made with his people. They had been his People but the evidence of the holocaust's millions murdered indicated God had failed to be their God. The silence of God is one of those realities which challenges us most profoundly and to which our faith is most vulnerable. It is also a reality which is central to the eremitical life both as a challenging and penitential context expressing our yearning for God, and as a consoling element reflecting our wholeness and completion in God. Silence can be an expression of isolation, meaninglessness, and the seeming unresponsiveness of God or it can be an expression of the covenantal solitude in which we are completed as persons and come to quies, or shalom.

I can't say that God speaks TO me directly very often but I can say that God is frequently, even continuously speaking me, that is, calling my name and summoning me to fullness of life and wholeness. I have learned that most profoundly in silence and in the life that comes in silence. So many times silence reflected my own emptiness and incapacity --- just as it does with all of us. At one point before I became a hermit I thought I had reached the end of my strength, the end of my ability to see any meaningfulness in my life, any potential for serving God or his People. I had nothing to say except the single question, "WHY?!" and in asking this, I expected no real answers. It was most usually the silent cry of anguish I myself was. Only rarely was I able to pose it directly, to speak it aloud or claim it as my identity which called for an Other. Silence in those times was a terrible trial; but it was also a gift which opened me to a transcendent truth and love beyond anything I could have imagined.

In my own life I needed a God who would not simply answer my facile or sometimes desperate prayers but would instead embrace me in all of my poverty, emptiness, and inarticulateness, a God who would love me enough to bring life and  wholeness out of these. That required entering into these realities in silence to plumb their depths --- depths beyond words, thoughts, images, even beyond my more usual cries of anguish, apparent yearnings, etc both to meet God there and to open these realities to God. Isn't this the very nature of prayer Paul speaks of in Romans 8:26: [[the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words;]] In time it (silence) became a necessary condition for the gift God would make of my life and the circumstances of that life. It became a piece of what my life witnesses to --- namely the importance of entering silence in all of its depths and painfulness precisely so that God can bring life out of death and an articulate and meaningful "word" even out of complete muteness. All of this is something that happens in silence.

As a result I generally distrust the notion of a spirituality which is or seems to be little more than a series of "messages" from God or "assignments" or "locutions," and "visions." I distrust this especially in one claiming to be a hermit. Not only are these seductive and potentially idolatrous, but, except in rare instances which are truly of God, they seem to me to be distractions from the silence of solitude. I don't think they are typical of eremitical spirituality at all. Hermits grapple with silence; more importantly though, they grapple with their own frailty and poverty in silence. They allow the absolute Silence and cosmic Song we know as God to embrace even their life's worst and most painful silences, and transfigure these so that they too may sing their part in what hermits call "the silence of solitude" --- the covenantal "quies" and communion with God the authentic hermit (indeed, the authentic human being) truly is.

As noted above, out of our personal and external silence and physical solitude comes EITHER what the tradition refers to as "the silence of solitude" and the achievement of quies or hesychasm which result when human emptiness and divine fullness meet one another and powerless muteness is embraced by the Love we know as God, OR our lives are and remain a searing indictment of God and God's silence. It is, I think, a terrible temptation in such circumstances to "hear" God speaking to us in locutions, to find God in visions and in the facile assurances of some fraudulent spirituality or shallow form of piety, but it is my experience that the revelation of God's presence and power generally comes in silence. (That is, it generally comes silently in a way which embraces and transfigures our own deepest silence.) Redemption itself comes in the meeting of our own profoundest silence which is deeper than, but encompasses all the joy and anguish, all the poverty and potentiality we know, and the incredibly fecund silence of the Love-in-Act which grounds and summons the cosmos into existence out of nothing.

Because the encounter of these deep silences is redemptive, then yes, silence is a central part of the redemption to which a hermit witnesses. This is so just as entering the terrible inarticulateness and even muteness of apparently meaningless suffering or the silence of senseless death while encountering the terrible silence of God is part of the redemption achieved in the Christ Event. In that event what could have been the most damning indictment of God's silence becomes instead the most profound witness to the scope and power of Divine Love's embrace.

As I have noted here before, our culture knows little of dwelling in silence. It fears it, considers it fruitless and perhaps significant of failure; knowing it is both associated with suffering and can unmask and occasion suffering, we generally fill it with sound of every kind. We deflect it and distract from it and when noise becomes too great we layer more noise on top of it rather than embracing  greater silence. We all know the truism that it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the Living God --- or to meet ourselves in the silences of our own hearts, much less to plumb these to their depths. We also know, I think, that as a result shallowness and superficiality mark our lives and relationships.

In our relationship with God we may fill our side of things with prayers and should we somehow meet the silence of God during a prayer period, we are apt to claim instead that God was absent or uncaring or simply failed to hear us. But hermits witness to the need for silence and solitude in becoming truly human --- in becoming the prayer God has made us to be. Beyond the need for external silence and physical solitude they witness to the silence of solitude that results when we allow ourselves to struggle with(in) and fall through these lesser silences deep into the hands of the Silent, Living God whose Word we are meant to enflesh and whose counterparts we are made and called to become.