Followup on the Prayer Lives of Hermits

Dear Sister Laurel, I wanted to thank you for what you wrote about the prayer lives of hermits. As someone trying to become a lay hermit and write my own Rule I found your recent post on this very helpful. I have also been led to look at what you have written about "stricter separation from the world" by your comments on using pious practices to cover over what is really worldliness: 

[[One journals and talks with her director to see if she might be using one form of prayer to avoid something else --- that profound listening that requires one be in touch with her deepest heart, for instance, or monastic leisure and letting go of the need to "produce" or do rather than be. These latter difficulties are or can be reflections of the worldliness that follows us into the hermitage so we must not simply slap a pious practice over it and think we have "left the world" or begun to truly pray as a hermit in so doing. (It is the case that even certain practices in prayer, certain affectations or attachments may be more worldly than not.)]]

I have always thought that any prayer is a way of combating worldliness but I guess in the contemplative life that really may not be so. Can you please say more about this? Thank you.]]

Yes, when I wrote that I was thinking of, several things. First, and most incidentally or tangentially, there was a phrase I personally hate, namely that of "prayer warrior." So let me dispense with this piece of things before moving on to my more central concerns. Often I have seen the all-too-human desires for control, power, or fear translated into prayer-as-weapon. The idea of storming heaven with our prayers causes me to cringe because when you scratch the pious veneer off of the practice there is an idea of controlling God, getting God to take notice, a desire to recruit God to "our" side of some belligerence, etc. This is all very far removed from the contemplative prayer of hermits or a love that makes whole, for instance, and while I believe we all ought to lend our hearts and minds in support of the concerns and needs of our brothers and sisters (which is what intercessory prayer allows), I don't think any genuine prayer can be about getting God's attention (which does not mean we should not pour out our profound sense of need!!), attempting to control God, convincing God with our needs, bargaining, etc. I do think that this tendency in our prayer can be considered a form of worldliness and needs to be relinquished or otherwise outgrown.

The same is true of the second issue I had in mind, namely, treating prayer as a busy-making, productive activity in a world which is all about doing, making, producing and never enough about truly being, much less being truly ourselves and resting in God! If prayer is conceived of as a pious undertaking of our own doing, even if it involves pleading on behalf of others, we may well simply be perpetuating a very worldly pattern of self-assertion and the inability or even outright refusal to listen. I think it is essential to pour out our hearts to God, that is, to open every concern to Him and allow him to touch, hallow, and make that same heart one. Likewise I believe that in pouring out our hearts we mediate God's love to those we carry in those same hearts. Even so, we can do this in silence trusting that God will find his way into all of the nooks and crannies of our hearts, that he will move us to pour ourselves out to him, and that generally all we can provide (which we still do by God's grace) is our permission in what is really God's own work and movement. To treat prayer otherwise may be to perpetuate a worldliness that resists such utter dependence, is allergic to silence, and seeks to make prayer a work we succeed (or at least attempt to succeed) at ourselves.

A third thing I was thinking of when I made that comment was the tendency I sometimes see in those who would be hermits. Too often isolation and eccentricity are "baptized" by these folks with the title "hermit." Instead of working on the personal changes that need to be made so that one may overcome continuing occasions of alienation and rejection, these are "consecrated" with the notion that God desires these things or even that he causes or accomplishes them in one's life. But individualism, avoidance of conversion, and self-justification are pretty worldly attitudes and behaviors and to affirm that God desires (or even causes) their exacerbation rather than their healing and redemption in the name of mysticism, eremitism, or a "victim soul spirituality" is to slap a pious label on something which is worldly in the most destructive way. Self-described hermits may really be more about this kind of worldliness than they are about eremitical solitude --- which is being alone with God for the sake of others. It is ironic that the eremitical life as the Church understands it is NOT a good solution (much less vocation!) for those who refuse to be related to others. Because eremitical solitude is partly about loving others IN God (it is first of all about dwelling in God for God's own sake), isolation and a failure to love in concrete ways are actually antithetical to eremitical solitude.

Finally, I was thinking of those who pretend to be mystics or contemplatives. This can happen for many reasons but whether it occurs because this is thought to be a "higher" form of prayer, or because it allows them to opt out of the demanding commission given to every Christian to help build the Kingdom and participate in some integral way in the Body of Christ, it is worldly. If it occurs because it saves them from the everyday toil of maturing spiritually (humanly) or  learning to pray and to allow God to work in and with one, or because pseudo-mystical experiences are distracting from the pain of loss, rejection, alienation, illness, etc, or simply because they make the person feel special and loved (which, when authentic, of course these can and do, but in a way which produces incredible  fruit for others) --- these (inauthentic experiences) too are simply entirely worldly ways of living over which pious labels or activities have been plastered. Especially in contemplative life (and particularly when this is marked by mystical prayer) one must learn to really pray, learn to genuinely and wholly give oneself over to God in true humility. During this process one will experience tedium, boredom, a sense that one is getting nowhere in prayer, etc. In such instances to go back to an earlier form of prayer which was exciting or fulfilling in an attempt to avoid the difficulties of the present stage of growth is another version of a worldliness which eschews dependence on God, powerlessness, darkness or a lack of understanding and control, and certainly boredom or tedium of any sort.

It is simply all-too-easy to carry over attitudes and ways of approaching reality which are indeed worldly into our prayer -- and to do so in ways which are meant to protect these. Attempts to impress, to show only our best selves, to stand on our own merits, to succeed, to speak eloquently (when we ought to listen) or not at all (when we are called to speak up!), to create a prayer-as-achievement or settle for prayer experiences rather than to be a prayer, to be distracted from pain or to embrace an irresponsible quietism, to justify a refusal to be well (or to work toward wellness) by choosing isolation in the name of victimhood  or eremitical life, to mask anger and bitterness (especially at God!) under a layer of the language and thought of pseudo mystical misery and a distorted theology of suffering --- all of these and many more can be ways of what I described as trying to [[slap a pious practice over [something which is really worldly] and think we have "left the world" or begun to truly pray as a hermit in so doing.]] 

As I have written before, one of the really critical mistakes beginning hermits make is to believe they leave "the world" simply by shutting the door of their hermitage on everything outside it.  That simply makes of the hermitage a particularly dishonest (or deluded) outpost of the world one is seeking to redeem. But to really leave "the world" behind means to leave those attitudes and behaviors which are so much a part of the way we have been acculturated to think, perceive, and judge while we allow our hearts and minds to be entirely remade by God. When this happens, the hermitage becomes what one friend reminded me it should be, namely, a place where the cries and anguish of the world are truly heard --- and, I would add, where they are taken up into the very heart of God through the hermit's heart at prayer.

As a kind of postscript, please remember a couple of the things Merton says about "the world" and the danger of hypostasizing it. I have cited these before: "The way to find the real 'world' is not merely to measure and observe what is outside us, but to discover our own inner ground. For that is where the world is, first of all: in my deepest self.. . . This 'ground', this 'world' where I am mysteriously present at once to my own self and to the freedoms of all other men, is not a visible, objective and determined structure with fixed laws and demands. It is a living and self-creating mystery of which I am myself a part, to which I am myself my own unique door. When I find the world in my own ground, it is impossible for me to be alienated by it. . ." (The Inner Ground of Love)

"There remains a profound wisdom in the traditional Christian approach to the world as an object of choice. But we have to admit that the mechanical and habitual compulsions of a certain limited type of Christian thought have falsified the true value-perspective in which the world can be discovered and chosen as it is. To treat the world merely as an agglomeration of material goods and objects outside ourselves, and to reject these goods and objects in order to seek others which are "interior" or "spiritual" is in fact to miss the whole point of the challenging confrontation of the world and Christ. Do we really choose between the world and Christ as between two conflicting realities absolutely opposed? Or do we choose Christ by choosing the world as it really is in him, that is to say, redeemed by him, and encountered in the ground of our own personal freedom and love?" (The Inner Ground of Love, Emphasis added)

Abba Motius: Humility is to See Ourselves to Be the Same as the Rest

[[Dear Sister, you once wrote: [[What I am trying to say is there is a vast difference between fitting in because in one's basic Christianity one knows on a deep level how very like every other person one is, and therefore, truly belonging in any circumstance or set of circumstances, and trying to "blend in." The first is motivated by humility and carried along by one's genuine love of others. The second is too self-conscious and seems to me to not be motivated by humility or an honest love of others. Abba Motius of the Desert Fathers says it this way, "For this is humility: to see yourself to be the same as the rest." ]] If a person has certain gifts which make her stand apart from others is it really possible for her to affirm that "she is the same as all the rest"? If humility is a form of loving honesty as you have also written here, then is it honest or humble to deny the gifts which make one different from others? How does a person come to this kind of humility without denying their gifts? Is this another one of those Christian paradoxes you are so fond of?? Is it important to the kind of hermit you are?]]

Your question is amazingly timely because I have been thinking a lot this entire week about the gift of God which this conviction of how profoundly like others I really am truly is. In my own prayer life and in those experiences I might call "mystical," two gifts in particular have made all the difference in my ability to love and to be a person of genuine hope. The first has to do with a sense that the human heart is that place within us where God always bears witness to Godself, where God reveals Godself moment by moment as ever new and the source of a dynamic newness (and eternity) in us in a way which always transcends and is deeper than any woundedness or personal deficiency by which we might also be marked or marred. When there have been times I felt I could not face another day, when I had the sense that my own brokenness was too profound to be reached by the love of others or to allow me to love them, this sense that God was there within me 1) constituting a part of my very  existence which is deeper than any woundedess and 2) calling my name in an unceasing way that created genuine hope for a future both including and transcending all this, was really salvific for me.

The second gift which is related to this same prayer experience and which has been similarly transformative and lifegiving has been this sense that essentially I am "the same as all the rest of us." There was no striking direct revelation, no "locution" saying, "You are the same as everyone else!" or anything like that which convinced me of this. Instead it was the result of my reflection on the prayer experience I have spoken of here several times now where God was completely delighted to be able to "finally be here with [me] like this" and where I had the sense of having his entire attention.

What was pivotal here was the clear sense I had that 1) my own woundedness was no obstacle to God's delight, 2) that everyone delighted God in precisely this same way and 3) that everyone and everything else had God's entire attention just as I did. For me this became tremendously healing because it meant I was no longer burdened with the mistaken and personally crippling notion that my personal differences set me apart or isolated me from others in ways none of us could really ever overcome. It was this too that, at another point, allowed me to turn the corner on a solitary life rooted in isolation and unhealthy withdrawal and instead embrace one of authentic eremitical solitude and freedom.

For several significant reasons I came into early adulthood feeling that there were differences between myself and others which could never be bridged, much less healed or otherwise obviated. It was not merely that I was gifted in ways others might not have been (though there was some of that too) but instead that I came to realize that on some deep level I had the sense that my very humanity was wounded and changed in a way which could never allow me to truly love or be loved by others. It was as though I had been made different from others on a level that could never be healed or transfigured. While I actually got on well with others, was well-liked (even loved!), did well in studies and ministry, was (rightly) convinced I was called to serve God as a religious, etc, this profound sense of woundedness and "differentness" was a burden which sometimes made every step feel weighted with real sadness and despair --- even when most times that took the form of a kind of resignation and quiet grief or desperation. Whether due to personal giftedness, or deficiencies and woundedness, deep down I had the sense I could never truly embrace the Desert Father Motius' notion that I was the same as everyone else; thus, I also had the sense that authentic humanity, as well as loving and being loved was really forever beyond me.

And then, along with several other ongoing and supportive experiences of love and care by others, came the prayer experience I have briefly related here several times. It is because of that experience and my own reflection on that and similar but less seminal experiences over the next years that I am able to answer your questions with an assurance even a good theological background specializing in the theology of the cross (which is also VERY important here) might never have have allowed. Here then are those answers (so thanks for your patience). First of all you ask: [[If a person has certain gifts which make her stand apart from others is it really possible for her to affirm that "she is the same as all the rest"? If humility is a form of loving honesty as you have also written here, then is it honest or humble to deny the gifts which make one different from others?]]

In the first instance my answer is, yes, provided such a person knows who she is in God, and who others are in God as well. One must come to know oneself on this ultimately deep level, and she must come to know that all other persons --- no matter how different in talents, physical and intellectual abilities, family and psychosocial background, genetic makeup, health, etc, ---  are similarly grounded, similarly constituted, similarly called and loved in and by God. The word existence means to stand up out of (ex-istere); we stand up out of God who is the ground of being and meaning. That means that to some extent we are separate from one another in the very fact of our historical existence. However, it also means at a deeper (ultimate) level we are united with one another and all else that is.

In a way all I am saying here is we each share the very same humanity and all the gifts or deficiencies in the world cannot, will not, ever change that. To see reality in this way, to see creation as monastics tell us is the way of REALLY seeing, to see, that is, as GOD SEES is the basis of all of our security, our hope, and our ability to hold and carry both gifts and deficiencies lightly; this means we hold them in ways which do not isolate us from our brothers and sisters. My answer to your second question is that nothing need be denied in us or in others when we see ourselves and others this way. Yes, there will be differences, some of them pretty profound, but none so profound as the similarity and unity we share in God.

You also asked:  [[How does a person come to this kind of humility without denying their gifts? Is this another one of those Christian paradoxes you are so fond of?? Is it important to the kind of hermit you are?]] LOL! Yes, I guess this absolutely is one of those Christian paradoxes I am so delighted by and so very fond of. In fact, it is the very definition of paradox where apparent conflicts are allowed to stand because of a deeper unity in which resolution and even reconciliation is truly found.

I am not sure I can say much more about how a person comes to this humility. Certainly it is a grace. However, the things in my own life which allowed it include: 1) prayer in which I am loved (and allowed to love) beyond those things which make me either gifted or wounded and deficient in historico-temporal ways, 2) the Gospel of Christ which proclaims in fact that nothing can separate us from the love of God and so, reminds us that there is a deeper sustaining dynamism that is a constantly renewing source of life for us, 3) a faith which allows me to risk changing my mind and heart to embrace these realities and live from them, and 4) all of those people who mentored, taught, directed, pastored, treated, formed, supervised, or were friends to me out of their own faith in this transcendent reality and a belief in the person I most truly was and could be in light of it.

And regarding your final question, in one way and another everything I have written about eremitical life or the spiritual life here on this blog, every article I have published in Review for Religious, and so on, reflects the importance of all of these things for being the kind of hermit I am (not to mention the kinds of hermits I expect others to be as well)! I know first hand what it means to try and use canon 603 or eremitical life more generally to try to merely validate brokenness and isolation, but I also know what it means to live an authentic eremitical life in which these are redeemed and transformed into the silence of solitude and in which canon 603 is allowed to function as the Church really desired and needs it to function.

The same is true of contem-plative and/or mystical prayer. Certainly there are those who use pseudo mystical experiences to exacerbate their isolation and underscore their differentness from others. This is one of the problems which occurs when we focus on the "sensible furnishings" of the experience and fail to transcend these so that the real Wisdom of these experiences can take hold of us, shake us at our very foundations (Tillich), and remake us in mind, heart, and will.

Here is one of the places the work of Ruth Burrows I cited recently is so very important. (cf., On Pentecost, Ruth Burrows, OCD and the Real Experience in Mystical Prayer.) The same is also true of our true and false selves, where the true self is the "spontaneity" (Merton) or Event which is realized whenever the Spirit is allowed to grasp, shake, and transform (make true or verify) us entirely. Again, there is probably very little I have written about here and nothing of real significance that does not in some way owe its very existence to this "paradox" which is the key to understanding my experience in prayer and stands at the heart of all (but especially Christian) existence.  Certainly  there is nothing authentic in the kind of hermit I am which is not similarly indebted. Even something like the essential hiddenness of this vocation is illuminated by this paradox: cf  A Vocation to Extraordinary Ordinariness.

I am very grateful for your question. I don't know what made you look up that old post citing Abba Motius, Should Christians Try to Blend In? but that you did so this week and actually wrote me about it is a terrific gift. Thank you.

Canon 603: Normativity and the Prevention of Distortions, Abuses, Counterfeits and Frauds

[[Sister, you wrote that Bishop Remi de Roo gave several different reasons for asking the II Vatican Council to make eremitical life a state of perfection and include it in canon law. Could you please post these here? I could not copy them.]]

Sure. They are 1) The fact of a growing renewal of the life, 2) the sanctifying value of the hermit's life, 3) the hermit's contribution to the life of the church. This would include the hermit's prophetic role, a modeling of the Church's call to contemplation and the centrality of prayer, being a paradigm of the way we are each called to confront evil within our own lives and world, or allow heaven (God's own life shared with others) to interpenetrate our reality, etc 4) the ecumenical value of the hermit's life (especially re dialogue between Eastern and Western Christianity) 5) a correction of the impression that the evangelical counsels is limited to institutionalized community life known as religious life. Question continues:

[[I can see where these really are positive reasons for establishing Canon 603. Was it also a way to regulate the growth of the vocation or minimize distortions or abuses even if these weren't the reason the Canon came into existence? Thank you.]]

Yes. to point out the normative and ecclesial nature of canon 603 vocations is to say that the Church desires to respond to the Holy Spirit in authentic ways. This also therefore means that abuses, distortions, disedifying stereotypes, and destructive eccentrics or eccentricities cannot mask themselves as Catholic hermits or the stuff of canon 603 life as well as that the Church has a stake in being sure this does not occur. The big difference between noting that canon 603 ALSO helps prevent abuses and saying that it actually grew out of an attempt to deal with abuses should be clear. Since these elements are something of an informal vision of the place of the eremitical vocation in the Church, and since they are positive and ecclesially focused, they too underscore that the flip side of the positive normative nature of the canon involves the prevention of abuses.

What remains true however, is that unless the Church was (and is) faced with a true gift of the Holy Spirit  in eremitical life no canon would be necessary; nor would any exist. The Church could simply ignore (as "hermits", not as needy people!) the fraudulent or counterfeit "hermits" populating the various wildernesses (including internet sites!) of the world. The corollary then is that with this canon (i.e., this norm) the proliferation of counterfeits and frauds alongside those very few authentic vocations who consider this vocation seriously because of the canon, makes recognizing, exploring, and honoring the normative nature of the canon even more critical. While it is not meant to validate eccentricity and inauthenticity, it does pique the interest of many lone individuals who will never be professed accordingly for these same reasons (and better ones as well!).** As former detective Monk might say, in this regard Canon 603 is both a blessing and a curse.

I am not entirely sure about the idea that the canon was meant to regulate the growth of such vocations if by that you mean it was meant to prevent there from being lots and lots of them, for instance. The Church knows this is a relatively rare vocation and that few are called to human wholeness in this way. However, the specific non-negotiable  or defining elements of the canon do prevent just any lone pious person from thinking of themselves (much less portraying themselves publicly) as a hermit just as it prevents some of the practices which would surely proliferate without it: e.g., solitary apostolic religious for whom being a hermit is a "metaphor" for their lives, misanthropes, and others seeking to validate their strangeness or their failures at charity and relationships by applying the word "hermit" to their lives, Saturday-only contemplatives, married hermits, and any number of other examples I have mentioned in the past 7 years.

You may have noticed that I posted an answer to the question as to whether the Episcopal solitary was the same as the RC Hermit. In fact, it turns out that the Episcopalians use a canon which is sort of a catchall for unusual cases --- cases in which a person is not professed as part of a recognized Order or Community, for instance. While the solitaries I know personally in the Episcopal Church live lives which resemble my own in all the elements Canon 603 requires of the hermit, the Canon under which they are professed does NOT spell out these elements in the same way Canon 603 does. Thus, while I don't know if the Episcopal Church has problems with Bishops professing individuals as "solitaries" even if they do not live a desert spirituality, this too makes it clear that Canon 603 does limit the growth of the vocation to those persons who DO live its central and non-negotiable elements.

** Should anyone doubt that Canon 603 (and those professed under it) has subsequently led to MANY people seeking to be professed accordingly one story might help here. I was speaking to a Vicar for Consecrated Life about his diocese's experience with hermits, hermit candidates for profession, etc. This diocese has professed one diocesan hermit in the history of the canon, and that was only within the past decade. However, he said that every month (he may have said every week, I can't recall exactly now) people approach the diocese seeking to be admitted to profession as diocesan hermits. None of them has gotten as far as this one diocesan hermit in regard to the process of discernment and admission to public profession. (Note well that this is a diocese open to having diocesan hermits.)

If we take the lowest average possible while omitting periods of holidays and possibly the Summer months (and my sense is this is a fairly conservative number) that means that of at least 100 or so persons seeking admission to profession as a diocesan hermit in the past decade only 1 has been professed under canon 603 in this one diocese. Many dioceses of course have professed none and some have actually determined they will profess none in the foreseeable future. (There are significant pros and cons to this decision.) A few have professed several (we sort of laughingly call them "hotbeds" of eremitical life!). I think this too indicates that Canon 603 does naturally limit the growth of this vocation --- and rightly so. It also indicates, I think, why it is important to write publicly about this canon and the meaning of its central or defining elements. Some of these people will  actually one day become diocesan hermits if they can only come to understand and embrace the life it defines. Others never will, while a number of others probably never should.

Importance of Spiritual Direction for Hermits

[[Dear Sister Laurel, How important is it for a hermit to have a spiritual director? How do I find one? Can I work with one online? Also, will a diocese profess me without one? I am a hermit  by which I mean I live alone and avoid people, but I do not have a director; neither have I worked with one before. My parish priest hears my confessions but he says this is not the same as spiritual direction and has suggested that if I am serious about being a hermit that I get a spiritual director. He said to check out your blog and see what I thought. He also encourages me to get more involved in parish activities and relationships with people in the parish. Would a spiritual director help me decide about these kinds of things?]]

Stillsong Hermitage Oratory

Hi there,
      First, my thanks to your parish priest for recommending this blog to you. I think you will find a lot of material that will be helpful on your journey, whether or not you ever live as a lay or consecrated hermit --- or even if you continue simply to live alone. Check out the labels in the upper right hand column and you should find stuff of interest. If not, do as you have already done and email me with your questions.

For the Hermit Spiritual Direction is Indispensible

      Second though, your questions. A good spiritual director is critical even indispensable to a hermit. No diocese will profess you without one, and more than that, no diocese is apt to treat your petition to be recognized as a hermit and admitted to canonical profession seriously without a history of spiritual direction and a recommendation from your director --- and rightly so. When living in eremitical solitude, especially as a solitary hermit, there are so many ways things can go awry that a good director really is necessary. After all, the human heart is an ambiguous, complex reality. By definition it is the place where God bears witness to himself, but it is also a wilderness where one battles with demons --- the demons of anger, jealousy, fear, bitterness, resentment, boredom or acedia, etc, etc that can truly defile. A director can be immensely helpful in all of this, and in assisting us to grow into persons of authentic and profound love and sanctity. Similarly one needs to negotiate the shifts that come with prayer, and  discern the significant decisions which need to be made regarding what one is called to in this area or that. For instance, you speak of avoiding people and living alone; a good director can help you determine the authentically eremitical motives for these things and tease apart the more unworthy reasons we may live alone or avoid people. She can assist you in discovering the difference between eremitical solitude and simply living alone as well; together over time you can discern what it is God is truly calling you to whether than means how you personally will live eremitical life authentically or something else entirely.

Finding a Director

      Regarding finding a director and working with one online, let's start with finding one. My suggestion is to speak to people in your parish and diocese who are already working with a spiritual director and ask them about who that is. Most Sisters have directors, many priests do as well while many Sisters as well as some priests do direction. (It is not the same as hearing confession as your pastor clearly understands.) Retreat Houses in your area will know of some directors and may even have one or two on the premises. Your chancery office may have a list of directors in the diocese --- though I have found these are not always kept up to date. Another source of listings in your area is Spiritual Directors International. Not every director belongs (usually because of the annual fee) but you will get a good listing of folks who fit the bill in your area so it can be a jumping off point. Finally, if you have any seminaries or theological schools in your area most programs in pastoral theology or ministry require students to have a director so you can always check with  them and see if they have a list of prospects. You will especially want a director who is knowledgeable about contemplative prayer and life (they do not need to be contemplatives but they need to be contemplative prayers), and knowledgeable about the difference between eremitical solitude and simply living alone. Some background in psychology is helpful as well. If you are considering becoming a diocesan hermit they should also have some background in formation and what it means to live the vows. What is most important is that they be persons of prayer in spiritual direction themselves; access to a supervisor is also very helpful.

On Working with Someone by Phone or Skype

Sisters of Bethlehem

        I do not recommend working with a director online or by email and to be very honest, unless the director is very well-known and regarded by competent directors, I would personally distrust them if they accepted clients online except in the most carefully judged exceptions. I will say that this is especially true if the person they are working with is a "hermit" or desires to be a hermit. Spiritual Direction is a particularly intimate and intense relationship which requires face to face meetings whenever that is possible. While this is a help to the director it is far more important to the directee who really does deserve the best such a relationship can be.

While I have some clients I work with by phone or skype when people live a distance from me, I also tend to require regular face to face meetings whenever they can be arranged. That means traveling here for these clients, but I have found it is an important and even necessary arrangement. Occasionally I will accept a client for phone or skype-only meetings, but that person will have a history of  receiving spiritual direction somewhere in their ongoing formation and be clearly able to benefit from the relationship even without face to face meetings. Sometimes I have clients that move out of the area; usually it seems a good idea to continue working together and we do that via skype or phone; it tends to work better than with someone I don't know except through skype, for instance, because we already know each other well. In working with persons who desire to be hermits it is, I would argue, even more important for face to face meetings, as well as meetings in the hermit's own hermitage from time to time. Directing a hermit candidate is a bit trickier in some ways until the relationship is well-established so I especially recommend these folks find a director in their own region or area and take the necessary time to build the relationship.

The Need for Friendship and Parish Involvement

        It is interesting that your priest suggests you get more involved in the parish and in relationships there. Since he has read my blog it sounds like he might regard the eremitical vocation and reject some of the common stereotypes hermits fall prey to. If this is so it means his suggestions could be very well taken. In contrast to some stereotypes solitary hermits need friendships and solid relationships with their own parishes and members thereof. This does not mean they can be with their friends as often as they would like or invite them over to the hermitage more than occasionally (though hospitality remains a desert value which must be honored), but it does mean that eremitical life is a healthy, loving, full life in God and for that reason being an integral part of the parish, even if one is rarely present beyond Mass, is important for the hermit and for the parish. In other words,  misanthropes and curmudgeons need not apply!! I would suggest you speak with your pastor about why it is he has made his suggestion. If he has a real appreciation of the vocation and concerns about your own tendency to "avoid people" as you put the matter, I think you should listen to him. I know that for me personally, the description re "avoiding people" is a red flag. It is about the negative or peripheral rather than the positive or central dimensions of the life. But I don't know you at all and this is a blog, so at this point your comment is merely a red flag, nothing more than that.

        Working with a spiritual director would indeed help you to discern what is going on in your own life and heart and also how it is God is calling you to serve him and those he loves and considers precious. It may be that you are called to eremitical life and to all that involves (including relationships, parish life, and a solitude which is rich with the Word and life of God. It may simply be that solitude for you is a transitional phase of your life; if so working with a director will help you move through this phase creatively and in a way which witnesses to the grace of God. By all means, take your pastor's advice and talk to him frankly about his own perceptions. You need not agree completely but they will factor into your own discernment and your work with your director.

Followup Questions on Writing a Rule of Life: Should Bishops Write the Hermit's Rule?

[[Dear Sister Laurel, I wanted to thank you for what you have written about writing a Rule of Life. I have been able to find a little bit of information online about this, but your own blog has the most information so far. I am not a hermit but I like the idea of living according to a Rule of Life and your posts have been really helpful. I do have a question. You have written about the benefits of writing one's own Rule and doing so on the basis of one's lived experience. You have also said that people should not write a Rule without having lived the life for some time. But what about someone writing a Rule FOR a hermit? Recently I read about a new diocesan hermit whose Bishop wrote her Rule. I guess you wouldn't agree with that practice. Am I right? Can you see this working in individual cases? Should it become a regular (no pun intended) practice for Bishops?]]

Objections to Bishops Writing a Diocesan Hermit's Rule: How the Rule Functions

Well, you are correct that I don't think the practice of having a Bishop write one's own Rule is a good way to go or a good precedent to set. There are several reasons for this. First, the Rule is usually used by dioceses not only to assess the way a person lives solitary eremitical life, but it is an excellent piece of discerning the quality and type of vocation before one. Not least, it is a fairly good way of assessing the candidate's strengths, deficiencies, and relative readiness for profession to a vocation which is strongly dependent upon the hermit's own ability to act independently and maturely in her obedience to God's will in her life. After all, she cannot grow in this vocation otherwise, especially since her contact with superiors is relatively infrequent. Besides, Bishops change and will differ in the degrees of involvement they can have in any hermit's life; there must be a strong pattern of inner-directedness and appropriate autonomy in a diocesan hermit's life before she can be admitted to vows of any sort. The capacity to write a Rule for oneself reflects one's own degree of formation, one's conscious awareness of her own spiritual needs and disciplines, the way she specifically embodies the central values or elements of canon 603 and the eremitical tradition more generally, as well as the way she sees her own life affecting the life of her parish and diocese and vice versa.

Secondly, the Rule is not simply a list of do's and don't's; it is not merely or even primarily legislative. It is meant to be a document which reflects one's own inspired vision of the life, why it is significant in the 21st century, how the various pieces of living it fit one's own story and are shaped by that, and how generally God has been present to one along with how one best responds to Him in a call to the silence of solitude. The negotiation of the tension between eremitical traditions and the needs of the contemporary world and church are the hermit's to achieve. She will do so in dialogue with others --- including her Bishop and delegate, of course --- and especially she will do so in a prayerful, discerning way, but this negotiation IS her vocation and a large part of the charism (gift) she brings to the church and world. No one can do it for her.

Thirdly, as I have said before, while both of the following are essential, a Rule is intended first of all, to inspire one to live their vocation and only secondarily to legislate how one lives it. It is meant to provide a personal way to assume one's own place in the eremitical tradition and that means that only a hermit who has lived the life and is sensitive to its values, charisms, rhythms, freedom, constraints, and history is apt to be able to write an adequate Rule for herself. Associated with this is the fact that a hermit comes to conscious awareness of and terms with much of the tradition, her own life, and the shape of God's call to her in the actual writing of a Rule. The process of doing so (living and growing in the life, consciously reflecting on this, and then articulating in writing what makes that possible or what it obliges one to) is an intensely formative process and it is one I would hate anyone, but especially a diocesan hermit, to miss. Since some of these hermits have not been formed in religious life it becomes even more critical they not miss this intensely formative process and experience.

Problems with the Practice of Bishops Writing a Diocesan Hermit's Rule

Now, what about a Bishop writing the Rule for a solitary hermit? There are several problems I can see with this. First, most Bishops have neither the expertise nor the understanding of the eremitical life to do this. Not only are they apt to write the same Rule for one hermit as they write for another (simple lack of time and knowledge of the individuals will lead to this), but they are apt to write a list of do's and don't's --- a primarily legislative document rather than a document which is geared to 1) inspire, challenge to greater and greater understanding of the eremitical tradition and one's place in it in the 21st century, or 2) one which will serve as a guardrail allowing one to journey freely, creatively, and relatively safely through the wildernesses of that journey.

Secondly, if a Bishop is the one writing the Rule, that seems to suggest the candidate does not have the necessary experience to do so herself. After all, hermits have been required to do this themselves since 1983 and the promulgation of the revised Code of Canon Law, and in the main they have been doing so effectively. One of the most significant things we see in listening to the way Rules are shaped is how truly individual they are even while they represent the eremitical tradition and canon 603. This individuality within tradition is an actual piece of the charism (gift quality) of solitary eremitical life to the church and to the world and we ought not short-circuit the work of the Spirit nor take this piece away. Thirdly, if the Rule does not really fit the candidate particularly well in certain areas but is required for the person to be admitted to profession, it then raises questions for me as to how free the hermit candidate is to say no to what does not work for them and to write in that which does. Down the line, such hermits are apt to find themselves living a Rule which does not actually suit their own individual pattern for growth in Christ and they actually may not be able to fulfill the Rule they are vowed to fulfill.

Possible Alternatives to Bishops Writing Rules for Hermits

Having said this I think a Bishop could well write a set of guidelines for ALL hermit candidates in his diocese --- just as he (or someone he delegates) might do for a laura when several diocesan hermits come together to live in solitude. But, when established for solitary hermits, these would not be a Rule, only general requirements on what should be included, reflected on, and fleshed out in light of one's own lived experience. In the situation you mentioned (that is, if the one I am aware of is the same one), as I understand it, the Bishop wrote a draft of a Rule and the hermit was able to modify and edit it as she needed to. So long as the Bishop was not, for instance, demanding certain prayer forms (chaplets, the entire Divine Office), a certain frequency of attendance at Mass beyond some realistic standard which honors the needs and obligations of solitude, a fully specified horarium, etc, and so long as these guidelines do not curtail the important discernment the hermit herself is required to do as something inherent to the vocation itself, this could work. Also, as long as the Bishop makes it entirely clear that the hermit should edit and shape this draft in light of her own experience and in light of her own needs it could be acceptable --- though, I continue to think, less adequate than a hermit writing her own Rule.

One Sister with a background in leadership and formation I spoke with about this (and after I made the above comments in the original draft of this post) pointed out that a Bishop might well provide a Rule to a candidate at the beginning of a period of discernment and then, after a period of five years  or so, expect the hermit-candidate to write her own Rule prior to accepting her for admission to profession.  I think it is a VERY good idea. I would add that another revision might well be made before perpetual profession as needed (I believe it often will be). Moreover, I would suggest another Rule be written at the two or three year point rather than the five year point as one approached the possibility of temporary profession. This would allow the diocese a much better sense of the way the vocation is developing, the maturity with which the hermit is making the tradition her own, the degree to which she is living it out in dialogue with parish, universal church, and the contemporary world, the way in which she negotiates both the essential or non-negotiable elements of the life and the need for flexibility, the degree to which this is truly the vocation Canon 603 governs, and the world needs, etc. Not only would such a solution serve the diocese's own discernment in the matter, it would allow the candidate or hermit to educate the diocese (and chancery!!) about what a contemporary eremitical vocation is all about. Finally, it would give the hermit or candidate the needed opportunity to enjoy the formative and (for those truly called to the vocation) the confirming experience writing such a Rule usually is.

Summary of Objections

However, otherwise, no, I absolutely do not think Bishops writing hermits' Rules should become a regular practice (pun definitely intended!!). I dislike it as a precedent at all. Canon 603 is sufficient and hermits have done well by tailoring their own Rules to their lives and stories. This is especially true when Bishops are admitting sufficiently experienced and mature candidates to profession. Again, they have to be aware that not everyone who lives alone is called to eremitical life, and that freedom is one of the hallmarks of mature spirituality and especially mature eremitical spirituality. If someone has not got the experience to fulfill the requirement of c 603 regarding the writing of a Rule (I am emphatically not referring here to the hermit you mentioned by the way), then they are probably not ready for profession either. Further, Bishops, I think, have to be humble enough to admit that they do not really ordinarily understand the vocation sufficiently nor have the expertise to write an eremitical Rule. This would be especially true for Bishops who are not from a religious congregation. Most are canonists and as I have said before, knowing what is allowed (or not prohibited ) canonically is not the same thing as knowing what is vocationally prudent or appropriate, especially for a given individual.

Questions on Solitude, Occasions of Sin, etc.

[[Dear Sr. Laurel: I wonder if you could discuss at little bit on your blog the issue of what solitude means? Sometimes I think I have a hermit inclination, but I also fear it is just a desire to be away from people. Not a very loving thing. And too, it seems that since people seem to be my occassions (sic) of sin (gossip, envy, anger, hate) would being a hermit in order to avoid sin be an acceptable reason. I heard of a social worker at a nursing home who is a dedicated hermit, so I wonder how solitude works in a case like that. Thanks for your answer.]]

Hi there! Thanks for your questions. I have written a number of times about the nature of eremitical solitude as well as false and genuine solitude, so I would suggest you take a look at the labels in the column on the right. Look under solitude, false solitude, genuine solitude, etc. and you should find a number of posts which approach parts of your question. I will not repeat everything I have said there but I would like to address your questions about avoiding people, lack of charity, and avoiding the occasions of sin. I will also look briefly at your question re the hermit you mention and the requirement of solitude.

I think you should pay attention to what your heart tells you about avoiding people. From what you have written, it sounds like your deepest sense is that a desire to merely be away from people is not a legitimate desire and insufficient to justify eremitical solitude. I would generally agree. In eremitical solitude we must discover a profound love for others, and, in fact, live our lives for those others, or we are not talking about the same reality the Church is. It is also important to remember that every person requires solitude, sometimes even a great deal of it. The reasons may be therapeutic, or the solitude may be transitional, and so forth, but only very rarely will persons find this is a call to eremitical solitude. Finally, it is important to remember that traditionally people were allowed to pursue the eremitical life only after long experience in community. While this is not a strict requirement for Canon 603 profession today, the wisdom and life skills implied here are still essential. One needs to have learned to love others deeply and effectively before pursuing an eremitical calling. This implies an essential healing of one's own woundedness and a clear maturity in one's relationships with others.

While it is true that we are to avoid the near occasions of sin, it is the stuff we carry around within our own hearts which are the things which need attention. The passions you mention (that is, the distorting lenses which keep us from seeing people as God sees them --- envy, anger, hatred, perfectionism, hyper-criticism and the need for attention or belonging, etc, all of which can lead to gossip) would exist within you whether you were around people or not. Generally it is not people per se which are the causes of sin, but these passions or attitudes of the heart, and the woundedness or other personal issues which cause them. Were you (or anyone) to become a hermit in the mistaken notion that you were closing the door on "the world" or the "occasions of sin" these represent by avoiding people generally, you would find merely that you have closed the hermitage door and shut these real causes inside with you. This is one of the reasons I have written that "the world" is as much an inner reality as it is something outside us. My suggestion is that you find ways to work on the actual causes of the things which you have identified as problematical. You might want to consider working regularly with a spiritual director on these, for instance.

It is not clear to me whether you mean the person you referred to is a canonical hermit or not, but I will assume that is so and speak in generalities here. Diocesan hermits must be self-supporting and usually do need to work to do so. Some work part time outside the hermitage, but generally, we work from within the hermitage in ways which foster the eremitical life. Most Bishops will not profess hermits who need to work full time (I agree completely with this), and some will not profess people who must work outside the hermitage at all. If a hermit is already professed and they MUST work outside the hermitage for some reason, then ordinarily they will do so in a relatively solitary job which allows them to pray and generally maintain both an inner and an outer silence. For instance, one woman who desires to be a diocesan hermit cleans offices after hours. This does not conflict with her commitment to live a solitary life at all. Even so, her Bishop will not profess her. The situation you describe may or may not conflict with the demands of solitude. It may be part time, for instance, and be balanced by a fairly strict reclusion and contemplative praxis. If it is full time work, then I don't personally see how she can be said to be living an eremitical life, and I would question the wisdom and prudence of professing her. However, it may also be a VERY temporary situation and the person may be working towards a better arrangement which does not conflict with her vowed eremitical commitments.

Unfortunately, the desire for eremitical solitude, and even having discerned a completely genuine call to eremitical life is not the same as living an eremitical life and fulfilling the commitments required by Canon 603. Part of a living and vital call or vocation is the response and, as I have noted before, Canon 603 requires a life of 1) stricter separation from the world, 2) the silence of solitude, 3) assiduous prayer and penance, 4) the evangelical counsels, 5) faithfulness to a Rule of Life one composes oneself and 6) all of these elements lived under the supervision of one's Bishop for the salvation of the world. The Church is generally quite cautious about professing people under this relatively new canon, but occasionally in the past 25+ years it has been used to profess individuals who are not hermits at all as a kind of stopgap measure because there is no other canon available for the profession of individuals. In time, and with more genuine vocations and experience (not to mention people asking good questions like yours), this kind of abuse will hopefully decrease or cease altogether.

I hope this answer helps. If it confuses or raises other questions, please feel free to get back to me.

Charism, Counterfeits, and Canon 603

I was drawn to a headline online about the growth of the number of hermits in Britain. The story was a huge disappointment, however, and it was annoying and frustrating to boot. With a subtext of genuine and rightful concern for an aging population in Britain, the reporter told two stories, one of which was the following:

[[Tom Leppard is by no means an ornamental hermit. I interviewed him . . . for my book on English eccentrics. After a brutal convent education, and retired from the armed forces, Tom Leppard moved to London, which he loathed. It made him realise that every time in his life he'd been unhappy people had been involved. So Leppard vowed to become a hermit and moved to a remote part of the Isle of Skye. Before leaving London he had 99.2 per cent of his flesh tattooed with leopard spots, projecting his acute sense of apartness on to his skin.

That was more than 20 years ago. Tom is 73 now and – when we finally meet, after I track him down in his remote lair with the help of a local fisherman – he is wearing a woolly hat, a fleece with a flap that covers his groin, and very little else. His home, Paradise, as he calls it, is very neat. Most of his daily chores are aimed at keeping it that way. At the heart of his encampment is a cave made from the remains of a sheep pen and bits of timber from nearby beaches. He survives on tins of food he buys with the pension he picks up when he kayaks over to the mainland.

Before we can chat, he has to find his dentures. "Haven't spoken to anyone in a while, see," he explains. Leppard says he was lonely in London but never gets lonely now. But why choose such an extreme path? Leppard puts it simply: "I'm selfish. I've got all this," he nods at the view that sweeps past a flank of Scottish scarp. "And I want to keep it. I don't want to share it with anybody." As well as reminding us that it's possible to live without material possessions, by their example Woodcock and Leppard remind us not to confuse the words "alone" and "lonely". Companionship is not always a prerequisite to fulfilment. As our population gets older and we grow increasingly fond of living on our own, this is more relevant now than ever before.]]

Despite the humor (and the pathos) of the portrait it is one which causes authentic diocesan, lay, or religious hermits to cringe. It is a perfect example (though not as subtle as some) of the attempt to validate one's isolation by applying the term "hermit." I have to say I am surprised that --- important as are the concern for isolated elderly in Britain, and the message the author desires Leppard's life to convey --- the reporter could consider this particular portrait as one which reminds older persons that "companionship is not always a prerequisite to fulfillment," etc. How in the world the life of Tom Leppard represents one of "fulfillment" is an enigma I doubt the author could really explain.

I am also surprised that although Leppard is surely not "an ornamental hermit" (a term which refers to solitary persons who might be hired to live at the bottom of someone's garden to serve as an estate "ornament" for instance) a life characterized as essentially wounded, bitter, selfish, misanthropic, and completely eccentric --- not to say bizarre --- could be seen as exemplary of authentic eremitical life. Yes, Leppard certainly illustrates all the stereotypes I have written about in the last three years, but really, is this the best the reporter could have done in the attempt to draw positive lessons for an aging British population, most of whom will live their last years alone? Unless the entire article was tongue in cheek (and I wholly and sincerely doubt it was!), the bottom line seems to be, "Not to worry, if you have to grow old alone, defensive antisocial craziness is a numbing comfort!"

But, this story was also like a splash of cold water reminding me that the number of people who know the term hermit applies to something far more positive and selfless than the story of Mr Leppard is very small indeed. My own circle of acquaintances and friends is very much an exception in this, and I need to remember that. Ordinarily, even if the attitude towards hermits is more neutral and less negative, the term "hermit" is simply one that meets blank stares. The percentage of people who ask me "What order are you?" and look completely lost at the response, "I am a diocesan hermit" is huge. Rarely do I hear, "Oh, I have heard of that!" Given the rarity of the vocation and the youth of the Canon governing it, not to mention the relative hiddenness of hermits living under it, this is completely understandable. In any case the term "hermit" is not well understood --- sometimes even by the church's hierarchy and chancery personnel whose job it is to discern and nurture such vocations!

I had a couple of conver-sations with another diocesan hermit this week and this lack of under-standing came up as a real issue, especially with regard to Bishops and their chancery staff. What I came to conclude the bottom line in all of this is is a failure to understand not merely the essential elements of the life (a very real problem), but above all a failure to see clearly what constitutes the unique charism and mission of the diocesan hermit. I say this because once one understands how and why hermits are a gift to the church and world, and how it is they contribute concretely to the salvation of that world, one cannot really count the essential elements as negotiable or mistake counterfeit "hermits" for authentic ones any longer. Eremitical vocations, and especially those under Canon 603 need to understand and reflect the gift quality of the lives characterized in the canon --- and not in some merely abstract way, but in ways that the isolated elderly, among others, can really be empowered by and take hope from.

I have written a lot about the silence of solitude in the past week or so and I will return to this as I try to sketch out the unique charism of the diocesan hermit in greater detail. For the moment though it is important to see the vast difference between portraits like that of Tom Leppard and those of authentic eremitical life in the church. The latter do indeed affirm the things the reporter WISHED Leppard's life affirmed. They are indeed a gift of the Holy Spirit in this way. But counterfeits like Tom Leppard in this article make the vocation appear ridiculous and underscore the vast difference between lives characterized merely by silence AND solitude (aloneness), and those which are expressions of the silence OF solitude.

True and False Solitude/Solitaries

Recently a neighbor asked me some questions about the significance of my perpetual profession. She wondered what it meant, what would be different, what does it do? I started with the most basic ideas. Did she know what a hermit was? She responded, "Yes, it is someone who hides. . ." and then her statement sort of broke off, as if she realized how unflattering to me that definition must be!

And yet isn't my neighbor's idea pretty common? Isn't it true that even among hermits or those wanting to become religious hermits, there are strange ideas of what constitutes genuine solitude? Isn't there a sense sometimes that hermits embrace silence and solitude because they cannot and do not relate well to others? Isn't there a strong popular sense that hermits do not have close friends? That affirming that God alone is sufficient for us means we can dispense with the demands of social interaction, and beyond that, of deep friendship? Now let me be clear, reclusion is a unique vocation, and I am not referring to it here (though ordinarily authentic reclusion involves profound relationships and deep friendships too). I am talking about the genuine solitude of most hermits, a solitude whose heart is communion with God, and therefore, a solitude which spills over and finds another whole dimension of itself in relationships with others, and beyond that with the whole of God's creation.

Thomas Merton wrote about true versus false solitude and solitaries. For instance, he noted: [[“[the false solitary’s] solitude is imaginary … the false solitary is one who is able to imagine himself without companions while in reality he remains just as dependent on society as before – if not more dependent. He needs society as a ventriloquist needs a dummy. He projects his own voice and it comes back to him admiring, approving, opposing or at least adverting to his own separateness.”. . . “The true solitary does not renounce anything that is basic and human about his relationship to other men. He is deeply united to them – all the more deeply because he is no longer entranced by marginal concerns.”

One of the things that has become clearer and clearer to me as I live in solitude is just how much LIKE others I really am, and above all, how deeply related to them. This is true whether I am speaking about members of my parish, members of the orchestra I play violin in, clients, family, friends, etc. My vocation is unique but I am not. My circumstances are pretty common: a life marked and marred by illness, ordinary successes, some spectacular failures (some I am still coming to terms with and still feel embarrassment over), dreams yearning for fulfillment, a strong need to share what I have been given, etc. I spend a lot of time in silence and solitude, in contemplative prayer and study, and there is no doubt that I enjoy it and am sometimes tempted to use it as a way to withdraw defensively. But most of the time, so long as my life is profoundly prayerful, I do it because it allows me to be truly related in healthy ways with others, not to hide from those relationships. The hermit dwells in the heart of God, and the heart of God is a pretty populated place!!

[[The true solitary is not called to an illusion, to the contemplation of himself as a solitary. He is called to the nakedness and hunger of a more primitive and honest condition.”]]

Many things drive us to solitude and the notion of "hermitage", not all of them, or even most of them, necessarily positive. The immediate tendency when in physical solitude is to focus on self. One may be enamored of the IDEA of being a hermit, or even of the ROLE one is trying to assume instead of the person one actually is (not to mention the God who resides in one's heart). If one writes about eremitic life (or tries to do so!) this writing may simply be a not-so-veiled exercise in navel gazing and either self pity or self-aggrandizement. One could, conceiveably, justify many failures on many levels by considering oneself a hermit: social failures, emotional immaturity and the failure to achieve individuation, etc. Such a person might say to themselves, "Hermits don't have deep friendships!" "Hermits don't have to interact with the business/academic/ecclesial or other worlds; a hermit afterall, is 'dead to the world'", or again, "It is fine to rest in my suffering or to refuse to care appropriately for one's physical state, etc, because this is a form of 'mortification' in which I as victim participate in the redeeming suffering of Christ!", "God wills such suffering in my life," etc. Nevermind that such spiritualities are inherently dangerous and often the refuge of the deluded, or that their underlying theology is often bankrupt and a serious distortion of Christian theology.

But in an authentically DIVINE vocation to eremitic life, one will not indulge such pretense. If one has been brought to the desert by circumstances which are traumatic or negative and result in defense mechanisms which are destructive, in a genuine vocation, these will gradually be transfigured and transmuted into something far more positive and healthy. Religious language can be used to cover a plethora of sins: the inability to relate to others or reality can become a prohibition on particular friendships and allusions to dying to the world; a sense of victimization which casts the rest of the world in the role of perpetrators, can be recast and apparently (but not really) legitimized through the pious language of "victim souls" and "reparative suffering", one's own inner demons and need for either good spiritual direction or psychological assistance and personal work can be avoided, externalized, and superficially legitimated by calling our emotional states and defenses "attacks by the devil which God wills"

The hermitage is part sanctuary, part crucible, part battle ground, and part therapy space. No one comes to the desert for completely pure motives. We are all ambivalent. We are all complex and ambiguous mixtures of worthy and unworthy motives because at bottom we remain imago dei who are also sinners. At some point, in the authentic eremitic vocation though, the unworthy motives are worked through and discarded, while the worthy ones are purified and enhanced. If, once upon a time, our solitude, to whatever extent, was an escape and prison, it will become the doorway to engagement or communion and real freedom. If the subject of our meditations was ourselves AS SOLITARIES, our meditations will change and become those of a profoundly related solitary interested in and compassionate for others, and committed to God and God's OWN world of people --- with their problems AND possibilities.

Merton once pointed out that the person who went off into solitude also held a mirror up to themselves, and they would come away from that encounter either completely self-centered and insane, or other-centered and whole/holy (I admit this is a bad paraphrase, but it has been a number of years since I read this, and I would need to look up the exact statement to reprise it better; apologies to Merton). Either the things that pursued us into the desert will, with the grace of God, be met and transformed and transcended, or they will continue to define us, no matter what religious jargon we use to try to hide or "describe" the fact. Discernment of an eremitic vocation is not always easy, and when there are elements of a true vocation mixed with so much that is false, the job is always to move from inauthentic to authentic vocation, from false solitude to true solitude, from isolation and self-centeredness to a profound and compassionate relatedness established in the heart of God and spilling over into the rest of one's more tangible world.