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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

On Hermits and the Genesis 2:18 Observation That it is not Good that One be Alone

[[Sister Laurel, I wondered if anyone has ever asked you about Genesis 2:18 and the statement that it is not good for human beings to be alone? It was for that very reason that God created a woman to complete a man. How can you live as a hermit and claim to be living God's will for you if God recognized that it is not good for people to be alone? My questions also refer to making a vow of celibacy or chastity instead of getting married. Isn't it, like being a hermit, unnatural?]]

Thanks for your questions. No, I haven't written about this before, though your first question, especially, is a very good question and points to the reason there are so few hermits. This is not because living as a hermit is unnatural (solitude is really the most universal of human conditions), but because eremitic life is a unique way of revealing the nature of the human being who is both essentially solitary and made by God for community. (As I will note below, I believe the Genesis passage you refer to reflects both of these aspects of human life.) The interesting thing about eremitical life is that it is lived as an expression of one's obligations and commitments: 1) to be oneself and 2) to allow God to be God (Emmanuel) as an essential part of that. The hermit chooses to live both of these sets of obligations and commitments 3) so that others might be made whole and holy in God as well.  In other words, eremitical life is lived in relation to and for the sake of others, and, when healthy, is profoundly embedded in community --- that of the Church, of the larger world, and the whole of God's creation. Aloneness or existential solitude is experienced by every person. It is part of the way we are made, and Genesis affirms that. In eremitical life, however, though this may surprise some, there is also a strong sense of community and relatedness to others.

There is certainly a tension between being a solitary hermit and being in communion with others, but what my own experience and the writing and teaching of other hermits, both ancient and modern, tells me is that we are each of us solitary;  hermits are meant to reveal the essential nature of the human being. That includes not just our solitude, but the paradoxical fact that this solitude is lived out in relationship, first, of course, with God, and then with everyone else and the whole of creation. This means the hermit does not give up on people or the Church, nor is she doing something heroic in living a life of solitude with God. She is simply living the way human beings are born, die, and, in fact, the way most people live their lives in between these moments. Her life knows and expresses the reality with which every person struggles whenever they let go of the illusions and distractions of this world. (The illusions and distractions are a symptom of trying to escape this underlying struggle.) We are each of us solitaries. This is true even when we are married sacramentally and made one flesh!! Some, a relative few of us, are called to live an eremitic vocation in order to reveal the true nature of the human being and God. The accent in what we hermits live and reveal is on the existential solitude of the human person and the will of God to be Emmanuel, God with us. Even so, this does not allow us to omit the relational or communal nature of human being; still, the accent is not there as it is in community or married life.

When we read Genesis 2, we must see that mankind is created as a solitary creature. This is the source of what we call existential solitude. That is never changed by God. God does not decide his creation is bad and then start over again. God sees that there is something about existential solitude that needs "the other" and really cries out for community, but the substrate of existential solitude remains and conditions the whole of the human being's existence. Hermits journey to the depths of that solitude for the sake of a revelation of both human nature and the Divine will. There is a starkness about this revelation, and yet, the hermit does not disparage the need for community or live her special brand of solitude as though it is about some higher form of spirituality, some superior form of humanity in need of no one else. No. She is alone and without God, and the intimacy of that relationship, as well as the ecclesial context and the place of rare friends and colleagues, her "vocation" would indeed be an unnatural one. 

But the authentic hermit says very clearly that existential solitude is about being made for communion with God first and foremost. Secondarily, and also significantly, it is about giving ourselves for and to others who are our equals and our helpers. Isolation and even a radical uniqueness that isolates one from the whole of God's creation is not good. Eremitical solitude witnesses to all of this as it accents the existential solitude we each know and fear whenever the illusions and delusions, distractions, and comforting busyness we grasp at are stripped away from us. It seems to me that hermits confront us with the need for others in our lives in a way different from other vocations --- say those to community or marriage. Eremitical solitude is always about being alone with God, and for the sake of (along with the assistance of) others. That is why I always speak of it as the redemption of isolation.

When Thomas Merton wrote about this, he said: [[For we must remember that the Church is at the same time community and solitude.. The dying Christian is one with the Church, but he also suffers the loneliness of Christ's agony in Gethsemani. Very few . . . are able to face this fact squarely. And very few are expected to do so. It is the special vocation of certain ones who dedicate their whole lives with wrestling with solitude. An "agony" is a "wrestling."  The dying man in agony wrestles with solitude. But the wrestling with one's solitude is also a life-work -- a life "agony" (Disputed Questions, "Notes on a Philosophy of Solitude")** Merton's comments on a dying person can apply to each one of us struggling to live (or learn to live) fully and to be our truest selves, not least because doing so without the benefit of distraction, illusion, and the delusions often fostered by culture, is a central dimension of dying to self and eremitical "stricter separation from the world".

Thanks for your patience. I consider these thoughts the beginning of reflecting on Genesis 2:18. I hope they are at least a bit helpful given their still-chaotic nature! I'll come back to the question on the naturalness of a vow/life of consecrated celibacy in the next few days.

** Agonia, or agony, is actually a warm-up period before a difficult athletic contest. Jesus' agony in the garden was a period of profound "wrestling" to prepare himself for the awful contest that stood in front of him. It may involve physical and emotional pain, but this is not its first meaning, nor does the story of Jesus' prayer in the Garden imply physical agony. It is about the struggle of faithfulness and integrity in service to the will of God and God's sovereignty.

On Becoming the Hermit I am Called to Be

[[Sister Laurel, is it really possible for you to make the inner journey you speak of in terms of existential solitude while part of a parish, writing this blog, and doing spiritual direction? I wondered if the solitude lived by hermits can allow for such activity. Are you familiar with the idea that hermits should exist apart from the temporal world and the Church, and still be a model for them? I wondered what you thought of that idea.]]

Your questions at first struck me as difficult to respond to. That is because I am doing those things you are questioning and I am sharing about it here. So, why wouldn't I believe that these are all possible? What I write here is rooted in my own experience and my own reflection on and analysis of that experience, even when I don't share the details of all of that. Not every hermit will write about this journey, or analyze and reflect on it in the same way, but every authentic hermit will make this inner journey with and into God, different as it may look from one of us to the next. I came to eremitical life with a theological background, what had grown to be an interest in "chronic illness as vocation", and a personal background that made the exploration of existential solitude particularly meaningful, especially if it witnesses to the richness of eremitical life beyond the common and narrow stereotypes that still plague the vocation through the agency of antisocial loners and misanthropes. 

Guided by Stereotypes:

While a lot may have changed since the publication of Canon 603, I have the sense that most folks today are still guided by stereotypes in their understanding of this vocation. (I am not referring to you here, I don't know you at all!) Some have a knee-jerk reaction to anything that does not comport with those stereotypes, and reject such hermits out of hand without even giving c 603 life a hearing. But eremitical life has never been so univocal as that, and in every age and culture, eremites have been pioneers witnessing to the significance of the inner journey with, to, and for God's own sake in ways reflecting the diversity of these cultures and ages and the infinite potential and richness of a life lived in and from God. Sometimes, instead of stereotypes, people judge the eremitical life from external characteristics alone: Does the person live strictly alone or in a colony of hermits (or even in a house with one other person)? If in a colony or in a house with anyone else, then some say they can't really be considered hermits. Do they wear habits or not? If so, then they can't be considered hermits because they are not living lives "hidden from the eyes of men". Do they remain anonymous? If not, then again, they are not really hermits. How about their dwelling and church activity? If they live in a quiet apartment or are an integral part of their parish community of faith, and do not reside in a lonely place in the desert apart from a parish community, then they can't really be hermits, etc. Both solitude and an eremitical life of the "silence of solitude" are much richer, more diverse, and much more significant for every person than most narrow stereotypical understandings or those measured merely in terms of externals allow for.

Of course, all eremitical lives reveal commonalities and some elements are sine qua non if one wants to live an eremitical life authentically. I once described these as the ridges and whorls making up any fingerprint, despite the meaningful differences from one print to the next. Canon 603 lists these constitutive ridges and whorls as follows: stricter separation from the world, the silence of solitude, assiduous prayer and penance, profession of the evangelical counsels, a personal Rule of Life written by the hermit herself, all lived for the sake of the salvation of others and under the supervision of the diocesan Bishop. Each of us diocesan hermits lives ever more deeply into these elements, and we come to know by paying attention to the Holy Spirit that each one provides a doorway into a world wider and richer than anything we could have imagined.

Surprised by the Real Vocation:

For instance, when I was first reading about eremitical solitude, I could not have guessed that in its aloneness with God, it was a unique and rare form of community, nor could I have guessed it had to do with the redemption of isolation and alienation rather than their glorification or canonization! Similarly, I could not have imagined that the term "the world" refers not simply to the larger world outside the hermitage door, but instead,  to that which is resistant to Christ, though especially and primarily, that reality within one's own heart that represents the most pernicious and overlooked instance of this "world". Neither could I have suspected that parish life would present me with innumerable instances of instruction in learning to love and be loved by others as Christ loved --- all critical to someone presuming to live a genuinely solitary contemplative life! Finally, I could not have even begun to suspect that my own brokenness would provide the fertile ground for a flowering of God's love in a way that allowed me to journey into the shadow of death and despair and find there the source of all hope, wholeness, and holiness. It was in this journey that hiddenness, stricter separation from the world, and the silence of solitude all came together as c 603, I believe, well understands. Underlying all of this, I could not have seen that the theology I did (both undergraduate, graduate, and post graduate), prepared me incredibly well for the paradox, not only of the Christ Event that stands at the heart of my faith, but of the eremitical life itself, where solitude means a profound engagement with God on behalf of others and entails a careful engagement with others on God's behalf. 

Learning to be the Hermit I am Called to be:

When I began living this life, I had certain ideas about what being a hermit meant, just as you have. There were tensions between those beliefs and the ways I felt called by God to be true to myself and to God. What was ironic was that moving more deeply into eremitical life was made possible within and through those tensions. For instance, I thought solitude meant living apart from a parish community. Over time, however, I discovered that the time I spent engaging with others as part of and on behalf of parish life, also drew me more deeply into my solitary life with God. I chose to teach Scripture to a parish community (and to some who join us from outside it), and in the process found that my time in solitude was more and more fruitfully centered in Scripture. My prayer was richer, the inner work I undertook in spiritual direction was even better supported, and my life with others was both appropriately limited and more intimate and loving. 

Also important was the reading I did, and the people I had conversations with on eremitical life. Beyond this, I continued working with my director, and in all of this, the question of whether I was still called to be a hermit was at least implicit. We explored the tensions I experienced, discerned how I could be true to myself and faithful to God and this vocation, and time and again, what became freshly clear was that I was following my path to and with God and could trust that. As my inner journey became deeper, sometimes more demanding, and ever more fruitful, the truth of my call was reaffirmed many times over, and this inner journey became clearly identified with the vocation's hiddenness. (Because my vocation is also a public one (one of those tensions I mentioned), I rejected superficial definitions of hiddenness associated with anonymity.) Discernment was ongoing; nothing about the way I live this vocation went unexamined, and was examined again whenever circumstances changed, or tensions occurred or increased. Eventually, what became entirely clear to me was something I had glimpsed early on, namely, I am a hermit embodying a life defined by c 603; so long as I live my life with integrity and faithfulness to God, I will remain a hermit.

Same Ridges and Whorls, Unique Fingerprints: 

This does not mean anything goes, of course, nor does it mean that I myself am the measure of the meaning of the constitutive elements of c 603. It means I must continue discerning what is right for me and, along with the Church, my sense of this ecclesial vocation according to the way God calls me to wholeness and holiness. I have done that since 1983 and will continue to do so in all of the ways that are helpful and necessary. Absolutely, I will need to let go of preconceived and possibly anachronistic notions of what constitutes eremitical life, and I will continue to revise the way I live the normative elements as circumstances and maturation in my inner life necessitates. Again, the constitutive elements of c 603 are not words with a single, fairly superficial meaning, but instead are doorways into rich, multi-layered realms the hermit explores as part of her commitment to God and to God's Church, and, in fact, to God's entire creation in eremitical life.

Every hermit I know lives this life at least somewhat differently from every other hermit. Yes, there are the same ridges and whorls, the same constitutive elements as those made normative in c 603, but the way each of us embodies these ridges and whorls, our unique eremitical fingerprints themselves, will differ one from another. The activities you ask about help empower and give shape to my solitary exploration of C 603 in God. Should any one of them begin to detract or distract me from this journey, then I will let go of it.

Living in the World Without Being of the World:

I have to say your question about living apart from the temporal world does not make sense to me. I am temporal, that is, I live in space and time. I am an embodied, historical being. That is what it means to be human. Yes, I am also empowered by the Holy Spirit to transcend space and time in some ways, but I am neither atemporal nor ahistorical, nor can I be. One dimension of my vocation is to allow God's will to be Emmanuel (God With us) to be realized ever more fully in and through my life. Another overlapping dimension of my vocation is to allow God to make me into someone who is prepared to be wholly united with God in a "new heaven and a new earth". A third dimension of my vocation is to assist others in committing to and living from and with that same God, His Gospel, and the New Creation, of which Jesus is the firstfruits (1Cor 15:23). Hermits embody the truth of Jesus' charge to every Christian to be in the world but not of it. I am committed to that goal, but I cannot do it by abandoning my own historical (spatio-temporal) nature. Indeed, given the importance of the Incarnation in revealing both God's unconditional, inexhaustible love and the fullest truth of humanity, and given my own place as a sharer in that mission of Jesus, how would I even begin to do that? 

Matter or materiality is not contrary to life in God. We believe in bodily resurrection and bodily assumption. We believe that in ways known only to God, embodied reality (whatever that looks like!) has a place in the very life of God because of Jesus' death, resurrection, and ascension. We recognize that when Paul speaks of being a spiritual being or a fleshly being, he is speaking of the dimension of reality that defines us so that being spiritual means the whole person under the power of the Holy Spirit, while being fleshly means the whole person under the power of sin. In either case, we are speaking of being an embodied person. One of the miraculous witnesses of the Eucharist is to the way Jesus, as risen Christ, is wholly and gloriously present in, and at the same time, wholly transcends mere bread and wine. Sometimes I wonder if this is a foretaste not just of heaven, but of the way a glorified reality will ultimately be comprised. After all, when we speak of our ultimate goal, it is of life in and with God, which will also be embodied. The Scriptures remind us that we look forward to a new heaven and earth in which this exhaustive union involves the whole of creation, where the entirety is glorified. (cf, Isaiah 66:22; 65:17, Rev 21:1, 2 Peter 3:13)

Looking Again at Merton's Comment on the Likeness of Despair and Hope

I have been asked by a couple of people to say more about what Thomas Merton meant by stating that hope and despair are very much alike, as I raised the question rhetorically without providing a direct answer. The original post can be found here Why does the Church Need Hermits? and includes the pertinent Merton quote.

The passage in that post that I want to write about here is the one reflecting on Jesus' cry of abandonment from the cross, because I think that it is here we see most clearly a hope that could be mistaken for despair.  What I wrote there said, "And in the very depths of Jesus' journey into the darkest absence of being and meaning, life and love, God was there. But Jesus' question in the Garden was also sharpened there on the cross: why can't you pluck me out of this situation? Why HAVEN'T you rescued me? How will you vindicate me and, more importantly, my proclamation of the truth of your Reign, your sovereignty, if sinful, godless death is allowed to win out? Don't you see, godless death is swallowing me up!! I have nothing whatsoever left to give!! My God (not the more intimate, Abba!), why haven't you rescued me?"

What I think it is important to recognize about Jesus' so-called cry of abandonment is the fact that, despite the use of a more formal, "O God, my God" rather than Jesus' more usual and intimate, "Abba" Jesus was speaking to God and remained open to God doing whatever he willed to do to vindicate Jesus and his proclamation of God's coming Kingdom. The questions I posed in the above passage were meant to reflect a sharpening of the question Jesus posed in Gethsemane, "Isn't there another way?" It was as I meditated on and struggled with Jesus' experience on the cross that it became clear to me that I might have a sense of what Thomas Merton was saying about the kinship of hope and despair. 

In my own experience, I described these two realities as being "an eyeblink apart". When I said that, I was thinking of the parallax phenomenon where we look at an object first with one eye, and then with the other, without moving our head. There is a decided difference between the two views, yet they are still views of the same reality. I think in some ways this might have been what Merton saw about the relation of hope and despair, whether the source was his own experience or his meditation on Jesus' cry of abandonment or both together (which is what I believe he was speaking of).

Imagine yourself closing your right eye and looking at the events on Golgotha with just your left eye, so to speak. Jesus had reached the end of his own resources. In many ways, his situation seemed hopeless. It was a situation that struck fear and revulsion in the hearts and minds of those who even considered such a death. Crucifixion was considered a literally godless reality, and this was true for Jews as well as for the Greco-Roman world. Jesus' cry of abandonment (or any inarticulate cry, such as Mark gives us) could well be seen as a cry of abject despair, particularly as Jesus shifts his usual Abba to O God! Everything about the situation seems worthy of despair. When someone comes to the end of their resources and their life project seems to have collapsed not only in failure, but in abjectly humiliating failure underscored by personal betrayal and rejection because that life project was built on the proclamation of a God who loved without condition or limit and willed to be with us in every moment and mood of existence, well,  this is the stuff human despair is made of.

But let's look at the events of Jesus' crucifixion from that slightly different perspective using the idea of parallax and what it might be able to show us. Imagine you now close or hold your hand over your left eye and look at the same events with only your right eye. The change in perspectives is very slight, but the shift in the image being perceived is very real. Jesus had reached the end of his resources. In almost every way, his situation seemed hopeless. It was a situation that indeed struck terror and revulsion into the hearts and minds of every person in Jerusalem that day. It was a literally shameful, godless death in Jewish theology and abject foolishness and ignominy from the Greco-Roman perspective. Jesus' cry of abandonment (or his inarticulate cry in Mark's Gospel), even if it is taken from the first half of Psalm 22, appears at first to be a mockery of the eventual vindication that comes in the second half of the psalm --- perhaps a repudiation of his faith. Yes, Jesus has been betrayed and rejected by those who most loved him, except for his Mother and a couple of hangers-on. The God Jesus proclaimed with his life is apparently powerless -- if he exists at all. This is definitely the stuff despair is made of. And yet, what you can just barely see from this slightly different perspective is that Jesus has not closed himself off to God. His cry is not just a plaint of horrific suffering. It is also truly a prayer, the giving up of the last vestige of self-defense, the whole-hearted and heart-breaking embrace of a God that is bigger than even the greatest of human resources or their loss.

From this perspective, one can glimpse more clearly than one was able from the first perspective, that Jesus knows this God whose sovereignty he proclaimed and, despite the loss of everything else that could be called a resource, Jesus has not given up all hope.  This is not failure. This is what it looks like for the one who was utterly open and transparent to God to show us precisely how far this God would journey to truly be with us in every moment and mood of our lives. And Jesus allowed this; his own journey of integrity made it possible for God to enter this darkest and most senseless of realities, and transform it with his presence.  I believe this may have been what Thomas Merton was talking about when he referred to how similar despair and hope are. It is very like what I experienced at the beginning of Lent when I realized my deepest hungers and yearnings showed me the face of God and my own deepest self as well. For me, hope and despair were only an "eyeblink apart". They were so closely related that there were times I could not (thanks be to God!) tease them apart. But it was only in entering into the shadow of death and the precincts of despair or near-despair that an even more vibrant hope was possible.

Nothing and no one but God could have redeemed my own experience, just as only Jesus' Abba could have redeemed his experience and raised him to new life. I believe Thomas Merton's own life, prayer, and human struggle for wholeness and holiness brought him to something of the same experience that led him to say, " 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." How alike indeed! Sometimes that huge difference really is only an eyeblink apart.                                         

Do You Love Me, Peter? Being Made Fully Human in Dialogue With God (Reprise)

Today's Gospel includes the pericope where Jesus asks Peter three times if he loves him. It is the first time we hear much about or from Peter since his triple denial of Christ --- his fear-driven affirmations that he did not even know the man and is certainly not a disciple of his. After each question and reply by Peter, Jesus commissions Peter to "feed my lambs, feed my sheep." 

I have written about this at least three times before. About four or five years ago, I used this text to reflect on the place of conscience in our lives and a love which transcends law. At another point, I spoke about the importance of Jesus' questions and of my own difficulty with Jesus' question to Peter. Then, about three years ago, at the end of school, I asked the students to imagine what it feels like to have done something for which one feels there is no forgiveness possible and then to hear how an infinitely loving God deals with that. The solution is not, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer would have termed it, "cheap grace" --- a forgiveness without cost or consequences. Neither is it a worthless "luv" which some in the Church mistakenly disparage because they hear (they say) too many homilies about the God of Love and mercy and not enough about the God of "justice". Instead, what Jesus reveals in this lection is a merciful love which overcomes all fear and division and summons us to incredible responsibility and freedom. The center of this reading, in other words, is a love which does justice and sets all things right.

But, especially at this time in the church's life, today's Gospel also takes me to the WAY Jesus loves Peter. He addresses him directly; he asks him questions and allows him to discover an answer which stands in complete contrast to and tension with his earlier denials and the surge of emotions and complex of thoughts that prompted them. As with Peter, Jesus' very presence is a question or series of questions which have the power to call us deeper, beyond our own personal limitations and conflicts, to the core of our being. What Jesus does with Peter is engage him at a profound level of heart --- a level deeper than fear, deeper than ego, beyond defensiveness and insecurity. Jesus' presence enables dialogue at this profound level, dialogue with one's true self, with God, and with one's entire community; it is an engagement which brings healing and reveals that the capacity for dialogue is the deepest reflection of our humanity. (Can you hear echoes of the present emphasis on synodality and the call for a synodal Church here?)

It is this deep place in us that is the level for authentically human decision-making. When we perceive and act at this level of the heart, we see and act beyond the level of black and white thinking, beyond either/or judgmentalism, beyond narrow ways of thinking, Tillich might have referred to as "technical reason". Here, where we perceive with a larger rationality, we know paradox and hold the tensions of paradox together in faith and love. Here we act in authentic freedom. Jesus' dialogue with Peter points to all of this and to something more. It reminds us that loving God is not a matter of "feeling" some emotion --- though indeed it may well involve this too. Instead, it is something we are called and empowered to do in dialogue with the Word and Spirit of God, which transcends even feelings; it is a response realized in deciding to serve, to give, to nourish others despite the things happening to us at other levels of our being.

When we reflect on this text involving a paradigmatic dialogue between Peter and Jesus, we have a key to understanding the nature of all true ministry, and certainly to life and ministry in the Church. Not least, we have a significant model of papacy. Of course, it is a model of service, but it is one of service only to the extent it is one of true dialogue, first with God, then with oneself, and finally with all others. It is always and everywhere a matter of being engaged at the level of the heart, and so, as already noted, beyond ego, fear, defensiveness, black and white thinking, judgmentalism, or closed-mindedness to a place where one is comfortable with paradox. As John Paul II wrote in Ut Unum Sint, "Dialog has not only been undertaken; it is an outright necessity, one of the Church's priorities, " or again, "It is necessary to pass from antagonism and conflict to a situation where each party recognizes the other as a partner. . .any display of mutual opposition must disappear." (UUS, secs 31 and 29)

But what is true for Peter is, again, true for each of us. We must be engaged at the level of the heart and act in response to the dialogue that occurs there. Because of the place of the Word of God in this process, lectio divina, the reflective reading of Scripture, must be a part of our regular praxis. So too with prayer, especially quiet prayer whose focus is listening deeply and being comfortable with that often-paradoxical truth that comes to us in silence. Our humanity is meant to be a reflection of this profound dialogue. At every moment we are meant to be a hearing of Jesus' question and the commission to serve that it implies. At every moment, then, we are to become and be the response that transcends ego, fear, division, judgmentalism, and so forth. Engagement with the Word of God enables such exploration and engagement -- engagement from that place of unity and communion with God and others that Jesus' questions to Peter allowed him to find and live from. My prayer today is that each of us may commit to being open to this kind of engagement. It makes us the dialogical reality, the fuller realization of that New Creation which is truly "not of this world" but instead is of the Kingdom of God --- right here, right now.

Another Look at Existential Solitude and the Call to Authentic Humanity

[[Dear Sister, I have struggled with what you wrote about existential solitude. I am not sure I even know how to ask about it I struggled that much! But you said you had an experience of hunger, and it was a hunger for being and meaning. In another place, you said it was a hunger for wholeness. I am not sure what that means. I also don't understand how hunger for those things could lead to an experience of God and your deepest or truest self. Isn't hunger for these things a sign of their absence? You know, I never thought a hermit would have anything to offer me, your life seems so different from mine, but I have become aware that what you write about is exactly what I struggle with every day. Do you think therapists "pathologize" (your term) existential loneliness when it is really just basically human? I thought maybe you were saying that. If that's true, it could help me come to terms with my own experience of loneliness and that would mean you have taught me something I never expected to learn from a hermit. Thank you.]]

Really good questions! Thank you. Before I try to answer you, let me say a little about the most basic definition of God I use. When I speak of God, I recognize that (he) is the ground and source of all being and meaning (everything that exists and is meaningful depends upon something outside itself for these qualities). God is not a being among other beings; (he) is not even the biggest and best being among other beings, some kind of supreme being, for instance. Instead, God is the reality out of which everything that has existence "stands". The word existence literally means to stand up (-istere) out of (ex-) this reality.  God grounds our existence and is its source as well. In the same way, God is the ground and source of meaning. To the extent something has existence and meaning, it is grounded and has its source in God. I also believe that God is the ground and source of personhood, of the truly personal. This means that God is not impersonal despite not being A being. In meaningful existence and personhood, we are grounded and have our origin in God. We are, in the language of theology, contingent, and without God, we would simply cease to be.

With all of that in mind (at least in the back of our minds), let me try to answer your questions. How does hunger for being and meaning, or for wholeness, lead to an experience of God? By definition (as noted above), God is the source and ground of our existence. By itself, that says that our yearning for being and meaning is rooted in the very thing we are hungry for, that is, it is rooted in and points to God, who is the source of eternal or abundant and meaningful life. Wholeness or holiness has to do with being intimately and exhaustively related to God so that being and meaning are gifts from God and represent a share in God's own life.

Think of it this way: if I tell you that I yearn for a glass of ice-cold milk this means two things, 1) I already know what ice-cold milk tastes like and the way it satisfies certain needs and hungers, and 2) some form of void or lack has caused me to want or need that glass of ice-cold milk. There is a lack of something (in this case,the milk) that is experienced as a thirst, hunger, or yearning. When I write about yearning for wholeness or holiness and all that implies, it also points to both the presence of an intimate form of knowing (I know what it means to exist, and I know what it means for my life to be meaningful or purposeful); likewise, I am aware of some lack of these things (I can die; I need more of the life and meaning I already know intimately; I hunger for abundant or eternal life). Since God is the ground and source of all being and meaning, my very hunger for this is an implicit awareness of God's presence in my life, just as my awareness of thirst allows me to become aware of already knowing the nature and power of a glass of ice-cold milk on a hot day. (If that knowing was not there, if there was no such thing as ice-cold milk or I had never felt and tasted it, I could never have become aware of wanting or thirsting for it.)

In a similar way, when I get in touch with that profound yearning for wholeness, I become aware of what I am made for, what I have the potential for, who I am in light of these forms of hunger or yearning. I understand this as also being an awareness of my truest and deepest self, my most authentic identity and foundational humanness.  My sense is that this experience means transcending the ego self and any distorted senses of self or of God we might hold (or be held by!). One journeys to the depths of oneself and discovers both God and oneself in the process. When one embraces this true self, one becomes more whole and holy. One is grasped by God and begins to truly grasp who one is most fundamentally. That is the task of all spirituality, all prayer, and it is explicitly the goal and challenge of monastic and eremitical life.

I did allude to the fact that our society tends to pathologize all loneliness, yes. If we rule God (and perhaps the true self) out of the picture (as all forms of scientism do today), so do we rule out a central explanation for what I, Merton, and others call existential solitude. I am aware today of some really fine therapists whose spirituality (both Christian and Buddhist) allows them to avoid this tragic error, but in the main, it seems to me that the tendency to pathologize any uncomfortable experience, but particularly that of a deep and foundational loneliness and solitude still dominate the fields of psychology and psychotherapy. This means that people are often discouraged from admitting, much less expressing, their experience of existential solitude, or the exemplary nature of a search for God and one's truest identity. In such circumstances, they can even be convinced to medicate themselves against such an experience. This situation in science and therapy can actually contribute to a sense of shame that one experiences loneliness when, in fact, this specific experience of hunger or yearning is evidence of the fact that we are made to be the very image of God in our world.

I hope this makes sense to you. Thanks very much for your comments on my experience and its helpfulness to you. So often we think of the hermit life as a selfish one unless it is redeemed in terms of intercessory prayer. What I have been affirming during the last two months is that the hermit vocation is a truly significant human vocation that illustrates the universality of the call and nature of the solitary journey to God and authentic selfhood.

The Two Main Pathways to Seeking God

[[Hi Sister Laurel,  if one cannot make the journey into existential solitude hermits are committed to making, does this mean they cannot seek God? This sounds elitist to me. I am not able to live as a hermit or to make the kind of inner journey you do. I have other responsibilities, including a full-time job and a family to raise.]]

Important questions. Thanks for these! While recently I have written mainly about this journey into the depths of existential solitude, I have not meant to exclude the other ways we are called to seek God. Whether we are Benedictines or others who make this the focus of our lives or not, we are each called to seek God. It seems to me that there are two main (and interrelated) pathways to doing this. The first is to seek God outside of ourselves; the second is to seek God within ourselves. I think all of us are called to undertake both of these ways of seeking God, though not in the same way monastics or eremites might do this. This is not a problem since every human journey towards fullness of meaningful life is also a life in search of God.

The first way or route to seeking God, it seems to me, is about being open and attentive to the world around us. We seek God in the ordinary events, places, activities, and people of our lives. We may also, therefore, seek God under other rubrics or names: truth, beauty, integrity, order, spontaneity, life, love, faithfulness, courage, and so many others. This extraordinary or "sacred ordinariness" is something I have written about many times here, and it is something my friend, Rachel Denton, Er Dio, wrote about when she said, [[The heartbeat of my hermitage is its sacred ordinariness. It is an experience, in silence and solitude, of total immersion in the humdrum of daily life. A hermit is one who has, perhaps, become so overwhelmed by the immensity of the privilege of sharing Jesus’ humanity that she chooses to spend her whole life contemplating the mystery and manifestation of that gift in the most simple and ordinary form of living. A hermit lives out the mystery of the Incarnation in her own body, her own blood. A hermit says, “Christ, from the beginning of time, and in the fullness of time, chose being Jesus, being human, as the best way of expressing the love of the Trinity.]] Waiting in the Tabernacle of the Hermitage 

I think Sister Rachel Denton, Er Dio, expresses a mature, exemplary, and accessible approach to this first dimension of the eremitic journey. It is a dimension that every person, and certainly every Christian, should recognize as central to the human task of "seeking God" and the Divine task God sets us of becoming more fully and authentically human. In this way, Rachel's life is an exemplar of what each and all of our lives can and should reflect.

The second route or dimension of the search for God is the inner one, the path of existential solitude (for only we can make this journey into the depths of our own being, though again, we tend not to be able to do this alone). At the same time, I want to reiterate that even hermits, who undertake this journey in a more focused and exclusive way, do not do this by themselves. They have a spiritual director, a delegate or superior, and sometimes other hermits to assist them in assuring they do not lose their way or stray from their ordained path to fullness of life. At the same time, neither do hermits undertake this journey only for themselves. We do it because God, through the ministry of the Church, calls us to do it, yes, and we do it for the sake of the Church's proclamation of the Gospel and the salvation of the whole of God's creation.  I want to repeat what I wrote recently because it affirms the universality of this need to engage with and explore existential solitude.

Redwoods Abbey Altar during Tenebrae

[[. . .for some, the hunger for fullness of being and meaning, the yearning to be whole or holy and to allow God to be Emmanuel as fully and exhaustively as he wills, both for one's own sake and for the sake of others, will demand a different kind of commitment, a deeper and more exhaustive engagement with and in existential solitude. Some of these persons are called to be hermits.  Consecrated eremitical life is an ecclesial vocation undertaken for the sake of God's call to fullness of life. [The call to an engagement with existential solitude] belongs to each of us and to the Church itself. The hermit embraces the call and journey she does to witness to the God who is the ground and source of abundant life, meaningful life, eternal life, LIFE in relationship!! She explores the depths of herself and discovers that God is truly present, reaching out with love and mercy at every moment and mood of her journey -- even in the shadow of death and despair or near-despair. ]]

Every person is called to seek God and their truest self in existential solitude. Some become aware of this call during periods of illness or bereavement. Some will do so when they are thrown back on their own resources in some other way and experience their own weakness and incompleteness. Others will come to a moment of conversion occasioned by some special experience of transcendence and the Transcendent and begin to seek God and their own truest self in a more explicit way. (This could be an experience in Church, a visit to someplace stunningly beautiful, an experience of accomplishment or self-discovery that surprises and puts one in touch with themselves in a new way, etc. The possibilities are almost infinite.) Each of these persons and the events that mediated this need and desire to engage with and explore their own inner solitude, can look to the hermit (and often to other religious and monastics) and be reassured that their journey is not an empty one, no matter how difficult the circumstances that lead them here or how dark and treacherous the inner depths they will traverse. This is part of the "for others" character of the eremitic life. 

If we really understand this (and if those seeking to be hermits today truly understand it), I think it will make clear the eremitical journey is not an elitist one, but one made on behalf of others so they may have faith and hope rooted in the fact that, whether we discover God in the sacred ordinariness of our everyday lives, or in the challenging depths of even sin and death, the One Jesus called Abba comes to us in the unexpected and even the unacceptable place.

Why is the Journey of and into Existential Solitude Sometimes Frightening?

[[Dear Sister, your [response to the questions on Jesus' abandonment by God] was dense but wonderful. I really had not thought of things in this light at all, and I am still chewing on it. Thanks for that. I wondered if you could say more about this part of my original question: [[Hi Sister, is the inner journey you speak about under the name "existential solitude" frightening? Maybe that's a weird question, but you have said that everyone hesitates to undertake this journey even though it is necessary in order to be truly human. Why is this form of solitude so scary, or why do people want to avoid it? ]] I like being by myself and don't find solitude scary, so I wondered why existential solitude is so frightening to people. I got a sense that your own journey and Merton's were dark and terrifying at times, but why is that? Thanks for letting me ask again!]]

No problem with asking your questions again. I really appreciate it. When I start writing a reply, it's not the same as writing an academic article, for instance. I typically follow my thoughts until I have developed an answer to at least some part of the question, and that means I don't always get to all parts of it; usually, that leaves some important bits out of the picture. Sorry for that!! I am grateful you returned to keep me honest! So why is the journey I have spoken of frightening? Why do people avoid it? I will also add the question about why I undertook it and, in fact, committed my life to it in a search for God and to allowing him to be the One He willed to be for me and our world. After all, given the seriousness and danger of the journey, there must have been some even stronger reasons to undertake it.

All human beings grow up recording everything that happens to them.  We "remember" things because of our brain's capacity to store these in long-term storage to be accessed as needed, but we also remember things in our bodies and nervous systems more generally. Even when our memories are not conscious, they are stored somewhere within us and can influence who we are, how we behave, how we respond or react to current events, etc. Beneath all of this is our deepest self, the self God calls us to be in, through, and sometimes despite all the rest of it. Beneath all of this is also God, who dwells in our depths and summons us to life, to the decisions we will make in affirming life, to our vocation, etc. 

Unfortunately, some of these stored memories are associated with a personal woundedness that can block our access to God and our truest self. They can lead us to build up defenses to the pain associated with these memories, and prevent the kind of openness needed for union with God and our deepest self. At the same time, these defenses can prevent us from functioning at our fullest capacity in the present. Perhaps trusting others is difficult for us, or we are plagued by a tendency to withdraw. Perhaps we develop a bad self-image, an overweening self-critical voice, some degree of perfectionism, and so forth. Sometimes they will cause disproportionate recurrent reactions --- reactions that are either completely inappropriate or that are too little or too much to be a response to the present situation alone, because they are linked to what I describe as pools of suffering or woundedness carried deep within us. (Think of someone who "goes off" on folks at the smallest provocation, or someone who refuses to go out of their house for fear of everything, and think of all the variations and degrees of these things you have met in your own life.) We all have these "pools" of pain, just as we all have sclerosed or "scarred" and hardened patches within our own hearts.

In learning to listen to God who is deep within, and to realize the potential of our truest, deepest selves, the inner journey we are asked to take will mean "remembering" (and often reliving in some way!), and expressing the memories our body and mind have stored within us. Depending on one's life experience, such a journey will mean encountering darknesses (our own and others') and suffering we may only partly remember consciously. Similarly, it will mean dealing with and working through the deeper injuries we might never have suspected having sustained. The image I have used to describe this is one of a peach that is bumped on its way to or from the store. Imagine that this bump leaves a slight mark on the surface of the peach. If you were to peel the skin off at that place, you might be surprised to discover a larger area of injury, and if you slice off a layer of peach at that point, you may find an even larger area of woundedness. Were you to continue slicing off layers of the fruit, what you could find is a much deeper and more extensive area of bruising or woundedness than the surface disfigurement gave any real hint of. Our own woundedness can be like that, and the journey to the depths of ourselves will only gradually and surprisingly uncover this. 

The process of facing ourselves and our own history (because even without difficult memories, we each have a shadow side) can thus be painful and frightening. Merton's description here is a good one that his personal history and vocation made possible and necessary. You can imagine what it might be for someone with a different history than Merton's, a history of varying grief and trauma, for instance. But this process is also the way to healing because it means gradually reclaiming our whole selves, healing what can be healed, and accepting the limitations that cannot be changed, even as we also embrace with a new energy the potentialities that have lain undeveloped and waiting within us. (These are as much a source of our hunger for fullness of life as our woundedness is.) It requires working with someone who can support, encourage, and guide one with real understanding and expertise. It requires an experience of such a person's love (agape) and consistency, as they accompany and truly listen to us. And of course, it requires faith and some degree of hope on both persons' parts, because God is summoning one to undertake this journey and the healing it leads to; here it is especially true that what only one can do, one cannot do alone.

Not everyone can, or will, undertake such a journey, especially in the focused, committed way a monk or hermit is called to do. Most people will undertake the journey of existential solitude only to the degree required to function well in everyday life. After all, it takes time and real energy to undertake such a healing journey, so not everyone is free or able physically or psychologically to do this. Sometimes, though, even physical solitude is something folks will embrace only occasionally for retreat, or when life circumstances like illness or bereavement require it. Most people surround themselves with people, activities, noise, and distractions of all kinds to prevent themselves from facing themselves and what is buried deep (or sometimes not so deeply) within. 

But for some, the hunger for fullness of being and meaning, the yearning to be whole or holy and to allow God to be Emmanuel as fully and exhaustively as he wills, both for one's own sake and for the sake of others, will demand a different kind of commitment, a deeper and more exhaustive engagement with and in existential solitude. Some of these persons are called to be hermits.  Consecrated eremitical life is an ecclesial vocation undertaken for the sake of God's call to fullness of life. That call belongs to each of us and to the Church itself. The hermit embraces the call and journey she does to witness to the God who is the ground and source of abundant life, meaningful life, eternal life, LIFE in relationship!! She explores the depths of herself and discovers that God is truly present, reaching out with love and mercy at every moment and mood of her journey -- even in the shadow of death and despair or near-despair. This is the fundamental way the hermit comes to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ for the sake of God, God's Church, and God's entire creation.

As always, I hope this is helpful, and if it is unclear or raises more questions, feel free to get back to me! I am serious about that. When you do, it is helpful to me and likely to others reading here as well!

Followup Comments on Respect for Oneself, Others, and our use of the Internet

[[ Hi Sister O'Neal, what you wrote about the internet and privacy applies to more than hermits. I have wondered about the effect of the internet on everyone's sense of privacy and the way that diminishes our ability to respect ourselves and others. You said something like this in writing about hermits. It's almost as though people don't have a sense of their value anymore. What you wrote about your own "inner journey" recently interested me a lot because you were talking about something very intimate and personal, but you didn't let it all hang out there either. You had a clear reason for saying what you did, and I thought you did it for the sake of your vocation. I also thought that was risky and it made me ask if you were doing the opposite of what you had said you or any hermit should, but in the end, I thought you pulled it off.]]

Hi there, yourself! Thanks for your comments. Yes, I agree with you 100% regarding the internet and privacy issues. Thank you also for commenting on what I call a paradox, namely the need to write about certain deeply personal dimensions of my life while being appropriately discreet and so, without "letting it all hang out there" as you put it! I have done that because I think the inner journey I wrote about is the very heart of the eremitic vocation, and because I think it is only in making that clear that we can finally begin to lay to rest some of the stereotypes associated with the idea of hermits. It also provides a central core of content for those trying to discern and live this vocation or, perhaps, to discern another's eremitic vocation. This would apply to diocesan personnel and other c 603 hermits who might be assisting a diocesan team in accompanying or mentoring candidates or discerning this kind of vocation.

Once the emphasis is put on this kind of journey, many things fall into place in considering a call to this vocation. These include, but are not limited to, distinguishing between anonymity and hiddenness or privacy and hiddenness,  recognizing that physical solitude is not the measure of eremitical life while existential solitude is, recognizing the distinction between praying for others (important) and the deeper journey of prayer a hermit is called to make. (As I have written before, I dislike the appellation "prayer warrior", not because I don't think intercessory prayer is important (it is), or because hermits are not called to do battle with the demonic (they are), but because the term is bellicose and puts the accent on individual things the hermit does rather than on the unifying, meaning-imbuing journey the hermit is called to make.)

As I have said many times, that journey is a profoundly human and humanizing one undertaken not only for the sake of the hermit's own wholeness or sanctity, but for God's sake and the sake of the Church as Christ's own Church. (God wills to be Emmanuel, God with us, and we are committed to God's accomplishment of that will.) This journey is not only a universal one (i.e., every person is called to undertake it in some way appropriate to their state of life), but it is the highest act of charity we can offer God, because it is about providing (under the impulse of the Holy Spirit) the opportunity for God to truly be the God he willls to be for, with, and in us and God's Church. It is also an act of charity for ourselves since this is a profoundly humanizing process and commitment.

When you spoke about the effect of the internet and its potential to diminish our ability to respect ourselves and others I was aware of thinking that the internet tends not only to diminish our ability to respect social boundaries, but as part of this, it also fails to recognize the sacred and inviolable character of the human person. The Christian Scriptures remind us not to cast pearls before swine lest they be trampled underfoot. It seems to me that some of what I have seen on the internet is precisely about doing something very similar. While I don't believe persons are "swine", I do believe that if we put the genuinely holy out there as though it is just another bit of data about ourselves and our world, we invite people to become as swine and trample those sacred pearls underfoot as they root around searching for something more immediately appealing or "tasty". Acting in this way fails to recognize that these realities are deserving of protection and a sort of personal "tabernacling" --- if you can see what I mean. (In Judaism and in the Catholic Church, we reserve the holiest instances of God coming to us in a tabernacle. )

For Catholics, this idea of tabernacling refers primarily to God tabernacling with us and, in a related way, to the reservation of the Eucharist in an appropriate "tabernacle". However, the Church also reminds us that we are each tabernacles of the Holy Spirit, the sacred "places" where God himself abides inviolably. The way we treat our most precious journey with God should reflect the same kind of care we take with the Eucharist. We offer it freely to anyone in need of and truly desiring its nourishment, and at the same time, we take care that it is not profaned. We handle it with real care or devotion, signal in different ways that it is holy, and reverence it appropriately. This protects not only the Eucharist itself, but the person who might be ignorant of its true nature and thus, whether inadvertently or not, profane it and themselves at the same time. Similarly, the very intimate personal inner journey we each make with God as we seek wholeness, healing, and Divine "verification" or "verifying" (i.e., being made true in our "dialogue" with the love and mercy of God) is a sacred journey made by sacred and potentially holy persons; it should be treated that way. Otherwise, everyone involved, even if they are only casual observers, can be demeaned and profaned in the process.

One of the strongest points of division in today's world is between those who fail to regard the dignity of every person versus those who regard some people as having dignity and others, tragically, as less than human. The requirement that we treat each and every person with the same inherent dignity has already been mentioned several times by our new Pope Leo XIV, just as it was a serious refrain in the writings and homilies of Francis, Leo's predecessor. When we fail to truly respect ourselves (and that means failing to see ourselves as and acting as sacred, as imago dei), so too will we fail to respect and denigrate others who are equally sacred and imago dei. The converse is also the case: when we fail to truly regard others as sacred (as imago dei), we will fail to appropriately regard ourselves as sacred (as imago dei). 

This means maintaining boundaries and taking care with what we put up on the internet. In your experience of the internet and in mine as well, we recognize the fascinating quality of some videos, podcasts, or writing, and we are apt to recognize that as we allow ourselves to be captured by these, we have become less than our truest or best selves. When I wrote earlier, I mentioned becoming voyeurs in such a process, despite never having intended this. Those of us who write or put up videos on the internet, especially while representing ourselves (or our Church) as hermits, must observe appropriate boundaries especially assiduously. Doing so means "tabernacling" the inviolable core of ourselves, and opening the doors to that tabernacle reverently and with real care and discretion, not in an elitist way (everyone, not just a limited few, should be able to benefit from our sharing), but in a way which ennobles those privileged to engage with us in this way.