Follow-up on Growing as a Hermit: The importance of Others and Learning to Listen

[[Dear Sister, first of all, thank you for your response to my question. Also, thank you for the chance to follow up. What I was interested to hear was how does a hermit with little access to other people measure their [own] growth? Here's where I was coming from in my question. I know that it is in my relationships with others that I really find out whether I have been growing or not. Sometimes I think I've got some hang up taken care of and all of a sudden there's an encounter with someone at my parish and any thought that I have grown in my ability to love others, or my capacity for patience, or whatever --- is shown for the delusion it is! It just seemed to me that a hermit has less chance to have the kinds of experiences that prove whether they have grown or not.

I also wanted to follow up on what you said about letting God be God. I never made the connection before between letting God be God, letting ourselves be loved by God, and loving God ourselves. They really are all the same thing, aren't they? Thank you for that insight!]]

Thanks again for getting back to me. I understand where you are coming from in your observation regarding access to people or relationships. My own experience is, in some ways, the same as yours with regard to seeing how I have grown as a hermit. One source of gauging or measuring growth will be how I deal with other people. Sometimes this has to do with how others still trigger reactions in me, how I get irritated or impatient or judgmental --- all that kind of thing. Sometimes I will notice shifts in relating that are more positive (though I might be noticing how much less irritated or impatient or judgmental I get than I once did, and this represents growth and healing). Yes, there's nothing like relating to others, especially after periods of solitude, to help one see the work that has been done and the work (or conversion, growth, or healing) that still needs to be done!!!

Sister Marietta Fahey, SHF

I do pay attention to the keys these kinds of encounters with others give me, but the source of growth, healing, and conversion will always mainly be my relationship with God. I grow in that relationship and as I do that, I find that it bears fruit in other relationships, in the way in which I see reality around me (for instance, is my realism tinged (or strongly colored) by cynicism or by hope?), and in the way I experience or know myself as well. It also bears fruit in the way I live each day, how I handle illness and chronic pain, how faithful, caring, creative, and courageous I am able to be in spite of limitations, and in all of this, how faithful to prayer.) There are certainly times when all of that is harder (and sometimes very much harder) than at others and I depend on regular meetings with my director to share it all and to maintain perspective and direction. In between meetings for SD, it is journaling, prayer periods, and my time with Scripture that help keep me in touch with who I am called to be and who I am becoming. 

I think what I want you to hear here is the fact that a hermit's life is not ordinarily entirely closed off from others, or from the kind of listening and responding that characterizes relationships with these same others. Eremitical solitude is not isolation, after all!  Also, there are other ways to listen. I know, for instance, that when I stop journaling (or blogging!!) for a period of time something needs special attention. I know something is up when my prayer -- or my approach to prayer -- changes (for instance, I resist prayer or can't return to a normal pattern after a period of illness), or Scripture feels relatively flat to me. Note, however, the changes can also indicate something positive is going on with me and certainly in my relationship with God (and others), so, for instance, the need to add a third period of quiet prayer to the day.)  All of this, and what it all means for being faithful to (growing in) my identity and vocation in Christ depends on a commitment to listening and openness to myself and to God, and so, all of it is implicated in what I refer to as faithfulness to prayer. 

I remember writing here once about Thomas Merton saying that to be really crazy requires other people and that sanity was gained with the trees and mountains (probably a bad paraphrase but it will do for a very limited application). We really have to learn to listen to the content and quality of our own hearts if we are to grow. Moreover, we must learn to hear who God says we are --- how he loves and takes delight in us!! I think that best occurs in the silence of solitude, whether that solitude is about being in touch with ourselves while resting in the heart of God alone, being in touch with ourselves through the abundant life of God's creation, or seeing ourselves anew as we speak our truth to a good friend who generously gives herself over to hearing and accompanying us in this journey toward the fullness of Selfhood. In all of these situations we can hear our own hearts gently reflected back to us if we have learned to listen. That way lies growth, no matter who we are. Sometimes, our encounters with others result in inner turmoil, a kind of cacophony that doesn't serve growth in quite the same way --- if at all!

Thanks again for the follow-up question. I enjoyed pursuing this a bit further than I pursued it originally! And yes, "Letting God be God" etc.,  all mean essentially the same thing!!! Pretty cool, isn't it?