Henri Nouwen on Loneliness

One of the most important dimensions of my own life is the transformation of isolation into genuine solitude. I do not understand solitude simply as being alone, but rather in terms of being alone with God, and therefore, through bonds of love, with all of those others God holds as precious. I believe that when Nouwen speaks of loneliness he is speaking of the experience of isolation and the transformation of this into solitude, it sounds very like the experience that stands behind what I write and understand about the silence of solitude of my own eremitical life and c 603 itself. 

Especially important for hermits, I believe, is the way Nouwen's understanding of the effects of trying to escape loneliness versus living it in the very concrete and exhaustive ways he describes leads to the redemption of that loneliness that transforms it into solitude. When folks write about the Desert Fathers and Mothers, they often note a point when the lone desert dweller's escape from urban and societal chaos and violence becomes instead, a search for something higher and greater, a search for God and the true self. I believe we are looking at the same moment as it comes to each of us whether through isolation, loneliness, or alienation; when transformed by the grace of God, we find ourselves and God (and eventually also the "other") as we come to know what c 603 calls the silence of solitude. 

I hope you enjoy this brief interview with Henri Nouwen on the notion of becoming a Wounded Healer.

On the Difference Between a Lone Individual and a Hermit

[[Hi Sister, when you write about the distinction between a "lone individual" and a hermit or when you speak of isolation vs solitude what are you thinking of here? I am a bit of a loner but I sometimes wonder if I can be a hermit. I am not sure I understand the difference between solitude and isolation. Does this mean I am not called to be a hermit? What do these two things actually look like?]]

Important questions. Thank you. I will ask that you read through past articles here. I think they will assist you more than any one response will. Still, this should provide a place to start. Let me give you an example that may help. I live in a senior complex with 68 apartments mostly occupied by single (often widowed) individuals. Some are disabled, and a few are couples. I am the only hermit. That is not merely because I am a hermit canonically, but because the way my life is shaped, structured, motivated, and related to others differs fairly substantially from these things in the lives of others here. Similarly, during this time of lockdown, though many people know something more of what it means to live in extended physical solitude, very few seem to be allowing their lives to be shaped or motivated in the way a hermit's is. I do know a couple of people in my parish who make me think they might well be discovering something like an eremitical calling  during these circumstances, but in the main people are finding physical solitude merely isolates and truncates their lives and relationships. They are not discovering a deeper relatedness to others rooted in their relationship with God, nor -- again with a few exceptions --- are they allowing their lives to be shaped more completely by their relationship with God (which will naturally involve relatedness to others).

Most of those living in this complex are lone individuals. They may or may not have family nearby; most have friends including friends here in the complex. But it is circumstances of life that has them living alone, not the choice to do this in communion with God for the sake of the Gospel or the glory (revelation) of God and the salvation of others. Their time is their own and if the majority of their time is taken up watching TV or shopping, visiting their families, etc, then that is entirely fine -- though some of this will depend on or be limited by the requirements and stresses of shelter-in-place at this point in time. However, their life is strikingly different from mine -- not only in the lack of focus re ongoing formation, and relative lack of prayer, but especially in relatedness. One's relationship with God which includes a life lived very specifically for others and in some real community with them, I think, constitutes the difference between a hermit and a lone individual.

During the homily at my perpetual profession, Bp Vigneron said that I had given my home over to God. At the time I thought that was unsurprising given that I was giving my life to God and had done that at profession in the past. Yet, over these past months of "shelter-in-place" especially, I have come to see how unusual doing this actually is. What Bp Vigneron was saying in his own way was that my life was not compartmentalized with religion and spirituality in one compartment and the rest of ordinary life in another. Once, a candidate for profession under c 603 with whom I was working asked how I balanced the "hermit things" I did and the ordinary or "worldly" things. I asked what the "hermit things" were and he said, prayer, lectio, study, etc. When I asked what the ordinary (or even "worldly") things were, he explained, "Doing the dishes, cleaning house, scrubbing the toilet, laundry -- those kinds of things". It took me a bit of time to get him to eventually see that everything a hermit does, including scrubbing the toilet, is a "hermit thing". Solitude comes in different forms. Eremitical solitude means that everything one does in physical isolation is transformed by one's commitment to and relationship with God and to all that is God's; the transformation is real, not notional, not merely intellectual.

 You may be a bit of a loner; this is not necessarily a reason you can't become a hermit. I assume by saying you are a loner you mean you are an introvert and maybe that you have a very few really good friends. You can still be integrally connected to your parish and others in your community though an introvert. You can still live your life in the heart of human community in a real, not merely figurative way as an introvert. In any case, there is nothing wrong in being a lone individual, at least I am not saying there is; I am merely saying a hermit is something more and other than this and that such a person should not be mistaken for a hermit. The distinction between isolation and solitude is, again, rooted in the hermit's shaping, structuring, and the motivation for her life, especially as she does these things in terms of God and all that is precious to God.

In considering what I believe is a graced reality, I have sometimes written about "genuine solitude," or solitude as the "redemption of isolation". This, along with the distinction between a true individual and an individualist, I believe, is helpful in understanding the significant distinction you asked about and which all "would-be" hermits negotiate in truly becoming a hermit rather than merely a lone individual. Posts which may also help explain the distinction at the heart of this article will include those dealing with the distinction between the Episcopal canon on solitary religious life and the Roman Catholic Canon 603 which is specifically eremitical. Please check the labels listed to the right on "Canon 14 vs Canon 603".

A Contemplative Moment: Breathed into Wholeness

From Chapter 9, "Breathing With the Spirit Into Mission"

  Breathed Into Wholeness, Catholicity and Life In the Spirit

by

Sister Mary Frohlich, rscj

[[We have focused predominantly on the challenges of spiritual living from the perspective of the individual person, but it must always be remembered that the proposed model of personhood assumes that, both psychologically and spiritually, there is no person apart from participation in relationships. On the psychological level the dialogical model of the self places relationships with others into the very structure of the self, as each "part self" is formed within an ongoing dialogue with other persons, groups, or anthropomorphized beings, real or imagined. From the spiritual perspective, there is no person apart from the foundational relationship with the creator-God. Consequently, the authenticity of personal life is not to live simply for oneself, but always with and for others.

Thus, focusing on the individual does not mean downplaying the urgency of community building and communal change. Despite common tropes that suggest increasing individuality and increasing community centeredness work against each other, the opposite is the case when individuality is developed as the uniqueness of each one's relation to the Spirit. Indeed, Karl Rahner has noted that even at the subhuman level "the true law of things" is not: The more special and distinct in character the more separated, isolated and discontinuous from everything else, but the reverse: The more really special a thing is, the more abundance of being it has in itself, the more intimate unity and mutual participation there will be between it and what is other than itself." Thus, the greater is the individual capacity for individual relationship to the Spirit, the greater also is the capacity for intimate relationships and community building at all levels. . . .Individuals must become both more united and increasingly different.]]

Rahner quotation from "On the Significance in Redemptive History of the Individual Member of the Church" Mission and Grace, vol 1 (p. 118)

On the relationship of Chronic Illness to Eremitical Solitude

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Catching Up and Questions on Suffering Well

The latest Planned power outage is well over here in Lafayette and another one planned for early Wednesday morning into Thursday was put on hold. I am grateful because while I can manage many things without power some things are simply very difficult or impossible without it (hot showers, laundry, hot food). We actually had a couple of fires here in Lafayette and watched planes drop fire retardant and helicopters dropping water to prevent forward movement during wind events. There were some evacuations but they were short-lived, thanks be to God! Meanwhile, North of here the Kincaid fire continues with limited control (about 47%) and South of here (several hours) the Getty fire threatens museums, colleges, Motherhouses I know, and other institutions as well as many individual residences. 

I  have received some questions about a post I put up in June on the notion of suffering well (cf, Question on Suffering well). (Sorry but it took a couple of days to actually write an answer and there are other questions still waiting; I appreciate everyone's patience.) At this point in time, when so many people here in my state are suffering tragic losses, displacement, inability to work, etc., it is timely to be reminded of it. In that piece and the follow up (Followup on Suffering well: Suffering and the will of God) I wrote that for me the only way to suffer well was to live well in Christ in spite of suffering. I also wrote that it is important to distinguish between Jesus' suffering at the hands of humankind and what God willed for him.

Here I wrote that God wills Jesus to live a fully human life and death, but God did not specifically will Jesus' torture and suffering on the cross. It is true that if Jesus embraces authentic or genuine humanity in self-emptying and solidarity with God and others his life will entail profound suffering but what God wills for Jesus are those choices which bring greater and greater life, not choices simply for greater and greater suffering. Is there a difference? Yes. it is possible to will that a person lives fully and accepts the consequences of that life without willing the consequences per se. Think of parents who send their children to public schools. They will their children get all the benefits of a rich and diverse educational milieu; they do not will their children get bullied or run into teachers who are burned out but have tenure, for instance. Or think of the  Peace corps; it sends people all over the world to assist those in need. It does not will these workers become victims of mercenaries, etc. And yet, these unwilled consequences do occur.

So what were the follow up questions? They included: 1) Isn't our suffering reparational? Don't we make up for what is lacking in Jesus' suffering? 2) How do we distinguish between the suffering that comes as part of life and suffering that we can't let go of or that we take on rather than choosing life? and 3) why is it so hard to let go of suffering?

It is true that Colossians 1:24 speaks of making up for what was lacking in the sufferings of Christ but what does this mean? Does it mean, for instance, that Christ's own sufferings per se were insufficient and must be supplemented with our own --- as though Christ's passion was  objectively inadequate for the redemption of all creation? No, I don't think we can ever suggest such a thing. Objectively speaking Christ's passion, death, and descent were a perfect sacrifice marked by perfect obedience (perfect openness to and trust in God) and destroyed sin and death. But subjectively speaking the fruits of Jesus' passion, death, descent, and resurrection must become our own, that is we must embrace the life he brought to us as the Risen Christ in the Spirit of God, and we must do so as fully and faithfully as we can. This will mean learning to let go of a great deal (including a great deal of bad theology and spirituality), just as it will mean allowing the love of God to heal us of a great deal --- and both of these processes will entail suffering at the service of healing and selfless or generous life --- but it does not mean embracing suffering which, whether implicitly or explicitly, claims that the passion of Jesus was inadequate in some way.

Jesus' death allows the Love of God (the Love-in-act that IS God) to overcome all of those things which mark us as alienated from God. It does this with Jesus taking all of these things into himself while remaining open to God's presence and refusing to let these godless things separate him from God. This refusal to let sin and death separate him from God opens these realities to God. In absolute vulnerability Jesus took on sin and death (and thus every form of godlessness) and remained obedient to God (open and vulnerable to both suffering and the God who brings life out of nothingness) so that God might triumph over these things. Not only because of the weight of what he took on, but because of his openness and vulnerability, Jesus' suffering and death was more intense and deeper than anything you or I will ever know. But it also allowed God to enter into (or, from another perspective,  to take these things into himself) and transform them with his presence. Objectively speaking, sin and death were destroyed; they were transformed from godless realities into realities where God might be met face to face.

The result is the perspective we hear from Paul in tomorrow's reading from Romans 8 [[ If God is for us, who can be against us? 32He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all-how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things? 33Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen? It is God who justifies. 34Who then is the one who condemns? No one. Christ Jesus who died-more than that, who was raised to life-is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us. 35Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword? 36As it is written: "For your sake we face death all day long; we are considered as sheep to be slaughtered." 37No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. 38For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our LORD.]]

Does this sound like Paul (who only may have written Colossians) thought there was anything objectively lacking in Jesus' passion and death? No. At the same time, however, Paul knows that suffering continues and some must be embraced, not in reparation for sins (God in Christ is victorious over sin and death) but in order that we ourselves may embrace life and witness to the truth of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. God's objective victory over sin and death must be appropriated subjectively so that one day God might be all in all. It is only in this sense that we can speak of our own suffering (and our own victories over suffering as life is more and more fully embraced!!) as reparative with the accent on repair not reparation.

Why is it so Hard to Let Go of Suffering? 

Suffering is a very difficult reality for us. It seems meaningless and it tends to make our lives seem meaningless as well as it cuts us off from work, recreation. relationships, and, more profoundly, a sense of self which seems truly valuable. While all of this seems like a great reason to let go of suffering for some this suffering becomes a part of their very identity. When that is exacerbated by flawed theodicies --- theologies of evil/suffering in light of the goodness of God --- that validate suffering even when this occurs at the expense of life and choices for health, it becomes especially difficult to let go of suffering. For instance, the notion of victim souls is one of these approaches that validates one's suffering despite the problem that it diminishes the degree and meaning of the suffering of others. Similarly, but in less dramatic interpretations our suffering can make us feel special; we don't feel like victim souls but we may be victims in some sense and that can make us feel special, something hard to let go of.

Likewise it can become hard to let go of suffering when one has chronic illness which makes it intimidating to live without the limitations it imposes; we have to learn how to live a fuller life than illness allowed and that can be frightening. Even without the secondary gain associated with our illness this can be true. I think there are many reasons letting go of suffering becomes difficult for us and I have only mentioned a couple, but my own concern is with interpretations of suffering and evil that make them the will of God in one way and another. The versions of these theologies I have seen (heard or read) make of God something abhorrent. This God is not a God of life, a God who takes on sin and suffering in order to destroy them ultimately. Neither in these theologies is suffering a symptom of our estrangement from God (i.e., sin) nor do they draw a sufficient distinction between the permissive and active wills of God. The "God" they give us is a "God" who torments his creation -- but then they dress it up in pious language --- the language of reparation, discipline, and atonement. (Suffering can be a source of discipline, but generally this is because grace transforms pain from being something merely intolerable or destructive into a suffering that can occasion growth.)

It feels wonderful to believe God has chosen us. On the other hand it feels awful to be different from others, especially when the difference is caused by something like chronic illness or the sense we are not special to anyone. Some of us learn that God loves us no matter what and that we have value because of this. When we come to know ourselves as loved by God so too can we know ourselves as the same as others and simultaneously special; we will cease to need our illness as something that sets us apart or makes us special. Others, however, learn somehow that their suffering is an expression of God's love or that they are only loved by God to the extent they suffer. When this happens it may be almost impossible to let go of suffering and the victim status that seems to me to be a form of bondage unworthy of the Son/Daughter of God. But the God of Jesus Christ is the God who asks us to live well and offers us opportunities for ever-fuller or more abundant life -- even in the face of chronic illness for which little can be done. We Christians are called to learn to embrace these opportunities first of all and only thereafter and secondarily the forms of suffering which are consequences of living well in Christ.

So how do we distinguish between suffering that is a consequence of living well and is embraced as a part of living well and that which is more primary and can lead to a life of victimhood? I think sometimes it is a fine line, but not always. A number of years ago I wrote about someone who had made a "vow of suffering". Part of that vow was a promise to extend or prolong a life of suffering and a related promise to choose whichever option provided greater suffering. I admit the entire idea was appalling to me. I think we have to ask ourselves what are we choosing first of all and what are its fruits in the here and now: does it lead us to greater human wholeness, love of others, generosity, ability to empty ourselves and embrace responsible freedom? Does it take advantage of opportunities which lead to greater human wholeness and the ability to participate in community (and yes, even hermits need to be cognizant and careful of this for isolation and solitude are not the same thing!!)? For instance, do we act to end what suffering isolates us and curtails our life and especially our life in community when this is possible using normal remedies or do we turn in on ourselves and create an idol who supposedly wills our suffering and our isolation and diminishment as human beings in some sort of propitiation for the sinful condition of humanity?

It is absolutely possible to choose life and the suffering that comes from that (i.e., all kinds of sacrifice and forms of self-emptying which serve life and wholeness in ourselves and others) without believing God wills our suffering. At the same time it will be necessary to embrace the God who has chosen to be with us in all things including our suffering so that life in and of God can be truly sovereign here and now in this world. Our task in Christ is to allow heaven to ever more fully penetrate our world so that in and through our lives the Kingdom of God is truly at hand! We are not to be focused on heaven in a way which orients our life toward escaping this world; we are focused on heaven (life in and with God shared with all) in a way which transforms everything we touch with the love and life of God. If the God we believe in does not call us to a life committed to the transformation of all creation and to the sacrifices necessary to make that truly possible (unnecessary suffering actually stands in the way of this), then we are not believing/trusting in the God of Jesus Christ.

I hope this is helpful. If you have questions about specific examples of suffering and whether they fall into one category of suffering or the other please get back to me. Discerning when we are choosing life and suffering as a consequence as opposed to choosing suffering which is really a rejection of life can be difficult in some instances but in this as in every other thing we choose , the gospel admonition, "it is by their fruits that you will know them" is our ultimate criterion.

On My Own Decision to Pursue Consecration Under Canon 603

[[Dear Sister Laurel, you discerned whether to live your eremitical vocation as a lay hermit or as a canon 603 hermit didn't you? What made you decide to go for canon 603 or to not settle for lay eremitical life when that was looking like what you would need to do because of your diocese's hesitance to profess anyone under c 603? I know you say both vocations are valuable so I wondered why you chose to jump through the hoops it took to get canonical standing, especially given the long wait this entailed.]]

This is a great question (thanks for reading up in this blog; it shows in your question!). While I haven't talked about this for some time I have posted on it in indirect ways so I hope you'll look for those posts. It was natural for me to look to canon 603 profession and canonical standing as the way to establish one in an ecclesial vocation, not only because of my background in religious life, but because of my background in theology. I also had some experience of  non-canonical religious life which ostensibly used regional service roles as the means to governance but lacked any authoritative structures to deal with problems with community-wide implications. I saw several times where people without leadership (service) roles, but who were very much "power people" in their local communities and thus, in the community as a  whole, took advantage of situations to exploit or otherwise act unjustly toward those they disagreed with or perhaps didn't like.

These exploited or badly-treated persons had no canonical protections in such situations nor did they have any meaningful recourse to leadership or governance structures. There was an attractive but naïve idealism in this community, but idealism alone can't always deal with concrete situations; as a result there were some significant failures in justice. This was one of the first times I clearly saw that law could serve love -- particularly when idealism was inadequate to deal with human sinfulness and will-to-power. When the community shifted from a relatively neutral non-canonical to an anti-canonical stance things were exacerbated and my insight into the positive and complementary role of law made me consider the role and importance of canon law more than I had up until this point. Thus, when I began reading in canon law (1983) the New Code had just come out. I discovered both canons 603 and 604 on eremites/anchorites and consecrated virgins, as well as canon 605 which is addressed to bishops encouraging openness to new forms of consecrated life. Already a contemplative and still in community, I began thinking and reading about eremitical life then and it captured my imagination. A year or so later contacted my diocese for the first time about professing me as a hermit. Then began a long process of meeting with a Vicar in the Archdiocese of San Francisco who understood c 603 and then regular meetings for 5 years with Sister Susan Blomstad, OSF who became the Vicar for Religious and Vocations director for the Diocese of Oakland.

Eventually (during these five years) the diocese decided it would profess no one under c 603 for the foreseeable future --- a shock to Sister Susan and to myself --- because neither of us were informed of the decision in a timely way. By the time we were both informed, I was established as a hermit and it suited me well. Whether in community, as a c 603 hermit, or as a lay hermit I knew I would continue living eremitical life. I remember telling my director that I wished the Church would recognize how the Holy Spirit was working in my life (structured according to c 603) but if she would or could not I would continue living as I was. And so I did. Lay eremitical life would have been fine, had it seemed God was calling me to that --- but I eventually decided I needed to approach Bp John Cummins again before he retired and try to get my situation "regularized". I had learned I personally needed the structure of canonical standing and profession to live eremitical life in the heart of the church and continued to be struck by what it meant to be part of an ecclesial vocation and all that meant. That whole process took some time (lost letters, lost files, misfiled missives) and John Cummins had left office before the Chancellor contacted me to apologize and put in a word with the new Vicars for Religious. It took 23 years from the time I first knocked on the chancery door (so to speak) to the day I was perpetually professed as a diocesan hermit in 2007.

So why go through all the hassle? Why not live as a lay hermit? I was very clear about how God was working in my life with a call to eremitical life and that clarity deepened over the years. It was especially clear given my celibate experience, flourishing in silence and solitude, and what I experienced as a nuptial relationship with Christ. Moreover, I knew that if this vocation could function as a context for growth and real freedom for me it might well do that for others --- but only if dioceses were not afraid to use the canon and if they could see that eremitical life was a true vocation. You see, the world in which we live is tremendously individualistic, consumerist, and marked by isolation. Eremitical life is a paradoxical expression of life in prophetic witness against these things --- but the demands on dioceses for determining the distinction between these is significant. Yet, without its specifically ecclesial context this prophetic quality of authentic eremitical life cannot, it seems to me, be made as clear  as the hermit needs to do.

The freedom of the hermit requires a framework which establishes this both in the church and vis-a-vis society and the larger world. Canon 603 provides such a context. It represents a protective and challenging structure which defines eremitical life and the freedom thereof in contrast to a dehumanizing individualism, and contra the isolation and consumerism of so much contemporary life. Consecration under c 603 gives  one permission to explore the freedom of the Gospel lived in and towards the silence of solitude in the very heart of the church. This is a very great gift to the hermit and to the world. I felt called to live this this gift of God and its paradoxical witness not only so others could see what the Holy Spirit was doing in the church generally with this vocation, but in my own life as well.

Eremitical life is salvific for some of us. It has been salvific for me --- especially in its power to transform various forms and degrees of isolation into eremitical solitude. I believe others could benefit from this, both from the example of what canonical hermits live and from my own story. Some very few might find vocations to eremitical life while others might see a prophetic witness to the power of the Gospel in their own state of life. I don't live eremitical life because I wanted to do this or because it validates isolation or some misguided individualism. I did not choose canonical standing because I like canon law (though I think canon 603 is a thing of real beauty). I do it because via eremitical life God has been at work redeeming and transfiguring my life and I must honor and witness to that --- and I must do that in a way which says law serves love, reasonable structure protects real freedom, and living all of this in the heart of the Church through her People and institutions (including canon law, legitimate superiors, etc) can give witness and serve as challenging to the Church as well. Not everyone has my background or needs canon law to do all of this. I did and do; for this reason I chose to jump through all the hoops associated with becoming a consecrated Catholic Hermit, that is, a canon 603 hermit who lives an ecclesial eremitical life in the heart, name, and on behalf of the Church.

A Contemplative Moment: Solitude is not Separation

 

Solitude is Not Separation

by

Thomas Merton

  

Some (persons) have become hermits with the thought that sanctity could only be attained by escape from other (persons). But the only justification for a life of deliberate solitude is the conviction that it will help you to love not only God but other (people). If you go into the desert merely to get away from people you dislike, you will find neither peace nor solitude; you will only isolate yourself with a tribe of devils.

 

Man seeks unity because he is the image of the One God. Unity implies solitude, and hence the need to be physically alone. But unity and solitude are not metaphysical isolation. He who isolates himself in order to enjoy a kind of independence in his egotistic and external self does not find unity at all, for he disintegrates into a multiplicity  of conflicting passions and finally ends in confusion and total unreality. Solitude is not and can never be a narcissistic dialogue of the ego with itself. Such self-contemplation is a futile attempt to establish the finite self as infinite, to make it permanently independent of all other beings. And this is madness. Note, however that it is not a madness peculiar to solitaries --- it is much more common to those who try to assert their own unique excellence by dominating others. this is the more usual sin.

 

. . .True solitude is the home of the person, false solitude the refuge of the individualist. The person is constituted by a uniquely subsisting capacity to love --- by a radical ability to care for all beings made by God and loved by Him. Such a capacity is destroyed by the loss of perspective. . . Go into the desert not to escape other (people) but in order to find them in God.

 

. . .There is no true solitude except interior solitude. And interior solitude is not possible for anyone who does not accept (her) right place in relation to other(s). There is no true peace possible for the (one) who still imagines that some accident of talent or grace or virtue segregates (her) from other(s) and places (her) above them. Solitude is not separation. God does not give us graces or talents or virtues for ourselves alone. We are members one of another and everything that is given to one member is given for the whole body. I do not wash my feet to make them more beautiful than my face.

[I write a lot here about the difference between solitude and isolation, eremitism and individualism, and these are a couple of the things I am asked about most frequently --- especially as folks discern the distinction between being a hermit and being a lone or solitary individual -- no matter how pious. Similar questions are posed on the idea of eremitical hiddenness and the distinction between that and anonymity and disengagement. Thomas Merton speaks to all of these ideas. He wrote about Solitude in Seeds of Contemplation but in New Seeds of Contemplation he wrote a new essay called "Solitude is not Separation". The differences between the two are striking; while complementary essays, they show such incredible shifts and development in his understanding and experience of eremitical solitude! The above post consists of excerpts from that second essay.]

Once Again on the Importance of Canonical Standing in Nurturing and Supporting the Eremitical Vocation

[[Dear Sister, I wondered if one of the reasons you support canonical standing for hermits has to do with the difficulty and importance of people understanding that solitude is more about communion or community than it is about isolation? What I was thinking was that it takes people to discern whether one is living an isolated life or one of eremitical solitude and the individual might not even know the difference. I also wondered if countering stereotypes of hermits is part of this same need for canonical standing or Church approval. Is this the reason the Church requires the hermit to jump through so many "hoops" to be professed canonically? I think you have written about this some. Lastly, I wondered if your own distinction between isolation and solitude as a "unique form of community" is rooted in your own experience of isolation or of growing to maturity in eremitical solitude? I don't think you have said much about this.]]

Thanks for your questions. They are excellent and it is very cool to hear you were wondering about this! I think I have written about all of these things except perhaps my own experience with/of isolation; I know I did some writing about the importance of canonical standing in On Hermit Ministry and the Call to Become God's Own Prayer and there may be another recent article that did the same. You might check under the label "solitude vs isolation" to see some of the ways I have approached this topic, especially as the place of the Church's discernment is revealed; the same is true of the label "eremitism as ecclesial" (or variations of this). One clarification, I do think canonical standing is important for hermits who live their vocations in the name of the Church, and I believe that strictly speaking, eremitical life is a gift of God to the Church and World which needs to be governed and supervised --- not always easy with such a prophetic vocation, but necessary nonetheless. At the same time I believe that many more than these relative few (consecrated/canonical hermits) are called instead to be lay hermits and to live eremitical life with the aid of spiritual directors and the support of their parishes; I also believe that the Church and world can and should benefit significantly from these lay eremitical lives --- no less than they do from the lives of consecrated hermits.

Difficulties in Discerning the Difference between Isolated Persons and Hermits:

That said, I do agree that there can be a significant difficulty in discerning the difference between an isolated person and one who has been embraced by and herself embraced eremitical solitude. (Remember that Merton writes poignantly about the necessity of solitude herself opening the door to the one who would be a hermit!) It requires a real knowledge of the person's heart and her commitment to and relationship with Life, Truth, and Love,  not merely a sense of the external silence and physical solitude of the person's life. I also agree that the process of discernment associated with the relatively long journey toward eremitical profession and consecration (always public or canonical in nature!) is a central way the Church lays bare and resolves this difficult question on a case-by-case basis. But the general difficulty remains and is evident even in newsletters, etc., which are meant to support and nurture eremitical vocations per se. One of the reasons I am not particularly enthusiastic about the self-identification so prevalent in forums like that of Raven's Bread (a newsletter for hermits, solitaries, and others who love solitude), for instance. is because just about anyone can call themselves a hermit and never feel a need to draw important distinctions regarding motivation, personal woundedness vs relative wholeness, historical and ecclesial understandings of the vocation, or to attend much to the tradition of eremitical life.

In today's excessively individualistic society everything from  an intolerant or self-indulgent cocooning to agoraphobia and misanthropy can be subsumed under the rubric "eremitism" in order to attempt to validate expressions of selfishness and woundedness while escaping the need for responsibility to Church and world in regard to a vocation which is meant for the edification of others via a unique proclamation of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This tendency to re-brand any number of social deficiencies and "disorders" as "eremitism" because solitude is defined only in terms of physical aloneness goes hand in hand with the tendency to rebrand or redefine license as authentic freedom. But eremitical solitude is only partly about physical solitude; at its heart it is about communion -- communion with God, with oneself, and with all others, communion which vividly defines the nature of the human being as a covenantal reality and human freedom as the counterpart of divine sovereignty.

In any case, just because someone says, "I am a hermit" in today's world does not mean they are one --- at least not as the Church understands the term; you are exactly right in pointing to the need for discernment in this. Even more important than the distinction between solitude and isolation in the need for canonical standing is the way in which this distinction is achieved and the reality it witnesses to in the authentic hermit: namely through her experience of the love of God in Christ which heals and transforms isolation into solitude. Because the canonical hermit is very specifically called and commissioned to live a solitude which vividly and consciously proclaims the life and love of God, the mutual discernment of the canonical process is necessary and helpful for all eremitical vocations. This is so because such a vocation results in wholeness, holiness, and a freedom expressed in compassionate self-gift rather than an isolation associated with personal woundedness, lack of freedom, a lack of generosity, and the incapacity for compassion or sacrifice. Distinguishing between these dimensions (solitude vs isolation, healthy withdrawal vs unhealthy withdrawal) in oneself is difficult; they can co-exist, especially in the beginning of an eremitical life when so much is ambiguous and still needs to be sorted out, integrated, or formed.

Fooling Ourselves and Misleading Others: The Importance of Mutual Discernment

Moreover, apart from this, our ability to fool ourselves and justify isolation --- especially by applying a label like "hermit" to validate this, by uncritically comparing ourselves to "hermits" of different centuries with different (and sometimes less valid) or actually unhealthy sensibilities and spiritualities, or (when unhealthy withdrawal or selfish isolation are met with skepticism or concern) by concluding, for instance, that we are simply misunderstood by "the world" which we believe we are somehow superior to spiritually or otherwise --- is simply too easy to do. But in these situations the so-called "hermit" will never witness adequately to the power of the love of God which unites her with all God loves; she will never be able to proclaim the Gospel in the unique way a hermit called to human wholeness and holiness will.

It takes others to assess and assist the hermit in assessing the real nature of her physical solitude, her deep motivations, her understanding of the nature of the vocation itself, the place of her relationship with God in Christ and others, and her own wholeness and holiness, if they are to truly discern the presence of an eremitical vocation. This has always been true in the church but it is much more urgent since canon 603 and the possibility of dioceses accepting hermit candidates without long formation in religious and/or monastic life.  Further, because of the individualism of our society, eremitism looks like many other things today  but at its heart it is generously (sacrificially) countercultural. Thus, because it is lived for others it is not a facile rejection of the world outside the hermitage nor an expression of spiritualities which falsely hypostasize and demonize "the world". (See posts re Thomas Merton's treatment of the notion of "the world" for explanations of this.)  Countering this false and destructive approach to the world around us and other stereotypes and misconceptions is certainly a part of the importance of canonical standing and the sometimes-lengthy discernment those seeking profession require.

After all, how can a church be expected to profess individuals to a genuinely compassionate and generous eremitical life without making sure the distinction between isolation and eremitical solitude is something candidates for profession and consecration have come to understand on the basis of long-experience, prayer, and even struggle to love effectively while embracing the life of a hermit? I sincerely believe the "hoops" we often refer to having candidates jump through are not usually onerous and are completely reasonable as the Church attempts to adequately embrace and celebrate the gift which God has given her in the midst of a world so often marked and marred by individualism and license. This is especially true given the uniqueness of each vocation and the way each candidate serves to educate the Church on the way the Holy Spirit brings individuals to an authentic eremitical vocation.

My Own Experience of the Distinction Between Isolation and Eremitical Solitude:

Your question about my own experience of isolation and growing to maturity in solitude is very perceptive. I insist that solitude is a unique experience of community partly because I have experienced the unhealthiness or destructiveness of isolation (physical, emotional, etc.) and its antithesis in the healing character of solitude,  partly because psychology and theology stress the importance of human relatedness (theology stresses this is our very nature), and partly because my own growth in solitary eremitical life (including the inner work I have undertaken over the past couple of years with my director) have each underscored this in its own complementary way.

Taking all these things together I would say I have been exploring the distinction between isolation and solitude for the whole of my life; I began long before I began doing so in a conscious way by focusing on eremitical solitude as a result of the publication of canon 603 in 1983. A number of factors made this necessary, not least significant childhood experiences of isolation and the effect of medically and surgically intractable epilepsy from the age of @ 19.  Similarly, the really positive influences in my life have underscored the communal nature of solitude along with the solitary pole of all community; that has been especially true with violin and orchestral playing, but also with academic work in Theology, my experience of community in religious life, work with physicians and others, and the gift of friendships, parish relationships, etc.

Without the deep and extensively-rooted sense that solitude represents the redemption of isolation, or the profound experience of being communal at our core, I do not know how I could have made sense of eremitical life or embraced it as a divine vocation. Thomas Merton's Contemplation in a World of Action captured my imagination but it did so because it spoke to and built on my life-experience of isolation vs. solitude. Without the experience of having the whole of my life being called to this particular form of self-gift, or the sense of the significance such a life holds where even many discrete gifts and talents are relinquished in order to witness to the way God alone creates, calls, and completes us as covenant partners in a relationship foundational for authentic human being, I could only have rejected eremitical life as the epitome of an unhealthy and inhuman withdrawal. For a host of reasons through the whole of my life I have been uniquely sensitized to isolation and marked with a hunger for genuine solitude. The inner work I have undertaken as part of spiritual direction is a commitment to being made more and more whole and holy in this kind of deeply relational or communal solitude.

By the way, in my emphasis on the ecclesial nature of this vocation this same dynamic is a defining element. While it is true that I often speak of ecclesial vocations in terms of ecclesial rights, obligations, and stable and governing structures, the communal nature of every such vocation is at the heart of the term "ecclesial". Ecclesial vocations represent vocations summoned forth by God from the "called ones" constituting the ecclesia. We say canonical hermits live eremitical life in the name of the Church and by that we mean such hermits are specifically authorized to live these vocations in the power and as an instance of the presence of the ecclesia. In other words, all such vocations are commissioned by the Church; they are nourished by, embraced on behalf of that community and missioned by and for that same community as well as those outside it; finally they are lived in a way which edifies (builds up) the faith community/ecclesia. While it does happen, it is hard for me to conceive how someone claiming to be called by God to be a canonical hermit could  honestly accept consecration to this ecclesial vocation if she failed to appreciate the communal dimension of her solitude and was committed to an individualistic isolation instead of eremitical solitude.

On Merton, Suffering, Solitude, and the Making of the Hermit

[[The contemplation of the Christian solitary is the awareness of the divine mercy transforming and elevating his own emptiness and turning it into the presence of perfect love, perfect fullness.]] [Merton's ideal solitaries] are thus, [[the paradoxical, tormented solitaries for whom there is no real place; men and women who have not so much chosen solitude as been chosen by it. And these have not generally found their way into the desert either through simplicity or through innocence. Theirs is the solitude that is reached the hard way, through bitter suffering and disillusionment.]]

[[Dear Sister, I have wondered for some time what makes a person want to be a hermit. It just never made sense to me unless the person was broken and embittered by life and needed to withdraw from that by giving up on people and even on God. It's the solitude that I can't justify. Community made sense but not solitude unless hermits were people who were unable to participate in community for some reason. When you have written about the creation of the hermit heart in your own life it sounds like it involved a lot of suffering but you don't come across as bitter or broken. Thomas Merton has written about this very thing (please see what I quoted from "The Hermitary" site); have you seen this already? But I wondered what makes your heart a hermit heart and not the heart of an embittered survivor of suffering. Is the answer in what Merton wrote about mercy?

Do you think Merton is correct in characterizing the "ideal solitary" as he does? If this is true it must be really difficult for dioceses to "discern" this kind of vocation. Do you know what I mean? In religious life candidates are screened for their health and wholeness and backgrounds involving suffering raises red flags for the vocation personnel. But if ideal hermits are "tormented solitaries" what does a diocese look for in determining authentic eremitical vocations?]]

Thank you for your observations and questions. I have written recently again, though briefly,  about fraudulent hermits; what you are asking about is really one of the more significant ways people betray the eremitical vocation or substitute an inauthentic version of the life for the real thing. What Merton was saying first of all, as I read him, is that solitude must open the door to the one wishing to live an eremitical life; one cannot simply decide to live solitude and do it without such an opening. The second thing I believe Merton is writing about is how the door of solitude is often opened to a person. One of the main ways is through suffering that isolates in any of the many ways this occurs. But I agree with you that suffering is not sufficient to truly discern an eremitical call; it is a beginning and might be suggestive but it is not definitive.

On Unredeemed Suffering and the Door to Solitude:

Moreover, if a person has nothing but her suffering and if that suffering  remains unredeemed or un-transfigured by the grace and love of God, she will never be a hermit in the proper (Christian) sense; instead she will remain an isolated, broken, and possibly embittered person but one who is largely, if not entirely incapable of proclaiming the Gospel with her life. Such a person ought not be admitted to profession as a canonical hermit because while she may "not have a place" --- one element of Merton's description --- neither can she live out the mission or charism of the canonical hermit. Genuine solitude is redeemed and transformed isolation. It is marked or characterized by its relational tenor, a unique but very significant and paradoxical form of relatedness, of ecclesiality and community. The place the hermit has is unusual but very real. The door solitude opens to us is unlocked in part by significant and long-term suffering a person experiences through the first half of her life, but at the same time the door of Solitude can only said to be opened if the person has come to know the potential healing and transformation of her woundedness by the unqualified love and eternal life of God.

While persons whose first half of life may be marked by significant suffering are sometimes important and illustrative of the way some eremitical vocations are born, as you say they are sometimes also difficult cases in regard to discernment by dioceses. This is especially true if suffering remains the defining dimension of the person's life.  When I began this blog more than a decade ago I wrote about one needing to be a hermit in some essential sense before one approached a diocese with a request to be professed. What I meant then and still hold is that one has to move from being an isolated person for whom physical solitude may merely mirror or even exacerbate the alienation that can come from and be a source of suffering to being one for whom solitude is a relational reality which heals isolation and is the context for real reconciliation. Hermits know more than physical solitude; they know communion -- with God and others. And this means they can (and in fact must) know the healing of whatever suffering marked their earlier years. When dioceses work with potential candidates for profession they must look for those persons for whom physical solitude is a unique form of communion and symptom and source of healing.

My Own Healing and Growth Work:

In my own inner work I have become even more convinced of this truth.  Both of the quotations you cited are important but in regard to becoming the hermit I am called and consecrated to be I especially resonate with the first one. [[The contemplation of the Christian solitary is the awareness of the Divine mercy transforming and elevating [her] own emptiness and turning it into the presence of perfect love, perfect fullness.]] This is the one which mirrors my profession motto, [[(God's) power is made perfect in weakness]] --- a motto I chose precisely because it reflects first the nature of the Christ Event and then my own story with and in light of the grace of God. My own story involves suffering, yes, but far more than that it is the story of God's grace, a grace which, as I have said here many times, brings light out of darkness, life out of death, and meaning out of senselessness and absurdity. What Merton says, what Paul says, what the Christ Event makes real in space and time, and what authentic hermits of all sorts also say is that suffering plunges a person into the depths of isolation and readies her to hear God's invitation to depend on God alone. When, and to the extent that invitation is accepted one's life is entirely transfigured into one of wholeness and holiness, one is defined in a new way. Suffering may not ease entirely and may even increase in some ways, but it will no longer be the thing which drives and defines the person.

 And this means, of course, that one whose defining experience is the mercy of God will show this to those discerning her vocation. The one who wishes to become a diocesan hermit will reveal the mercy of God as the ground and source of her suffering's redemption and her life's transfiguration. Without this her solitude will be nothing more than physical and maybe spiritual, and emotional isolation. She will be a lone individual --- her suffering will have made her this on a number of levels, but she will not be a hermit in the sense the Church uses the term. On the other hand those individuals who have made the journey that Merton describes, the journey through serious suffering and into the mercy and love of God, may well have discovered the eremitical world solitude herself (and only "Solitude" herself) admits them to.

Summary: A Note to Dioceses on the Charism of Diocesan Eremitical Life

To reiterate then, Dioceses which are careful in their discernment will not eschew a person whose life is full of suffering so long as that life is also one defined and clearly transformed by the grace of God experienced in eremitical solitude. Such a diocese is careful to look not only at the suffering but at the fruits of that suffering which would  demonstrate it has been transfigured by the mercy of God. When the latter is not clearly present, when for instance, the person's message is self-centered and full of expressed pain but little else, when, that is, her life is defined by her suffering and not by the grace of God, the diocese will have to wait and watch to see what kind of vocation is actually present. They will give the person some reasonable time in physical solitude to see what changes occur. Generally speaking, if the person is called to be a hermit, isolation and a focus on suffering will be transformed by the love of God into genuine solitude (a unique but very real expression of reconciliation and community in Christ)  and the proclamation with her entire life of the healing and redemptive love of God.

Also generally speaking, all of this reflects the way the heart of a hermit is created and the door to eremitical solitude is opened when there is a background or history of significant suffering. It reflects the way a life comes to reveal the charisma or gift to Church and World c 603 calls "the Silence of Solitude" in such cases.  Suffering of all sorts can hollow one out and make one yearn for answers to the question of self that only God can provide. One lives the questions associated with meaning: does my life make sense? Is it meaningful? Is it moved by love, both as giver and receiver? How can I make sure my life is meaningful by ministering to others in a way which is redemptive for them?  Why have or am I suffering in the apparently gratuitous way I have or am? Where is God in all of this and how can I live for God and others? As important as living the questions is, through the grace of God mediated to one in all the ways it comes to us, one will also come to live the answer: namely, I have lived/am living all of this so that the Gospel of God in Jesus Christ is proclaimed loudly and clearly (or silently but with clarity and poignancy!) and the God whose power is perfectly revealed in weakness resonates within my heart causing it to sing a Magnificat of gratitude and praise.

Followup Questions: Aloneness and the Experience of Transcendence

[[Sister Laurel, can you explain what you mean by experiences of transcendence during periods of isolation? Are you talking about mystical experiences in prayer? This makes sense to me but not for everyone and maybe for very few people. It wouldn't happen for younger children or for families (or persons) where there is no religion would it? I don't think you are talking about things used to escape the pain of such isolation so if I am right about that what do you actually mean? Also, when you speak of unchosen periods of isolation could this include solitary confinement in prisons? Could prisoners also have such experiences of transcendence? Could they become hermits? Lastly, if an experience of solitude is healing and inspiring why would a person still need therapy or other help to deal with the harm done to them by being isolated?  Thanks.]]

Yes, an experience of transcendence is one which 'comes from' beyond the person herself,  but ('works') through her and with her, and thus, also draws her beyond herself to some extent.* It may occur when we have reached the end of our own resources to lesser and greater degrees. I tend to identify such experiences with God but we can use the language of beauty, truth, depth, etc., as well. One of the best conversations on such experiences I have ever had was a brief exchange between my violin teacher (Laura Risk) and myself. We were working on the Bach Double and had talked about allowing the notes to be transformed into music; as part of preparing the piece we had gone through various passages and noted the emotions or feelings we wished to communicate and also planned the actual memories we would each access to allow this  to be realized. We were talking about transcending the notes and other instructions on the page by tapping into our own emotional and inner lives. At the same time that our memories and emotions gave a fresh life to the music some of these memories were redeemed (given a new value and meaning) by becoming part of this music. This too was part of the experience of transcendence --- though not the heart of it.

Our conversation morphed into one on what it was like to play and compose music and especially to combine these skills to improvise (because both of us were talented in this and did a lot of "just playing" apart from written parts and scores). In doing so we drew upon our own inner lives in the same way, but we recognized something more as well. Laura commented that for her playing in this way was about "tapping into the music of the universe" --- something that was ever present there beyond and all around us, but also something which could sound within and through us. I commented that in my language (theological or spiritual) I would describe this experience as being in dialogue with the Transcendent or even touching into the Divine and allowing that to work in and through me. I said I might even call this prayer.

Whether we used the language of "music of the universe" or of "God" and "prayer," we were both describing an experience of mediating the Transcendent through our own minds, hearts, spirits, and muscles --- for we, with all our limitations and gifts, were still the ones playing and improvising. Both of us, I think, had a clear sense of something "living", something greater than ourselves sounding and singing itself through us and doing so in ways which challenged and stretched us musically and as persons. We both knew in an intimate way this reality which could sustain us even as it transformed and let us transcend the concrete circumstances of our lives --- even  as it inspired us to create amazing music and in the process empowered us to become more than we were. A somewhat similar experience is associated with art and literature of all kinds. In How Does a Poem Mean? John Ciardi once referred to a piece of this experience of empowerment and transcendence when he wrote that (reading and writing) poetry, like karate, had the power to save us as we wandered some night through a dark alley. The transformation of our lives from those of inarticulate suffering (when that is our experience) and struggle, to amazingly articulate expressions of beauty, truth, and meaning is at the heart of genuine experiences of transcendence.

Mystical Prayer?

While I am not speaking of mystical experiences of prayer per se I am certainly speaking of the dynamics and reality of prayer itself. Although I never really thought of the improvisational violin playing I did through Junior High and High School as prayer, there is no doubt in my mind that it was during these years that I learned something absolutely fundamental about prayer.

Today I speak of that by saying God worked or spoke (or sang!) Godself in and through me --- though in no way did it cease to be my own playing! I was open to that for many reasons --- some having to do with talents and gifts and others with yearning rooted in great need and deficiency. I was disposed toward "obedience" in our Christian language and the result of all that was the prayer God accomplished within me via violin. Of course, I experienced the Transcendent in many ways during those same years --- just as most of us do. Only later did I learn to pray in more explicit ways and only much later did I experience what might be called "mystical prayer". But at bottom, from violin, to lectio divina, to study and writing, to contemplative or mystical prayer, and all the ordinary moments in between, it was the Transcendent experienced mainly in silence and solitude that defined all of these.

While I don't think children (or the majority of adults for that matter) will have mystical experiences per se, I do think every child experiences the Transcendent, knows what it means to transcend their everyday lives, and can understand the mediation of transcendence through experiences of play, storytelling and reading, imagination, art, etc. As children the experience of transcendence is central for us. Everyone who has watched (or tried to deal with!) the incessant "WHY?" of children has been watching little explosions of transcendence and the drive to transcendence. The same is true of watching the rapt face of a child hearing her first Dr Seuss or (later maybe) reading a Harry Potter book, or a small child humming to herself as she colors. Such experiences use the deep resources of our own minds and hearts, the capacity for joy and play and spontaneity we have, as well as our own talents and skills, but they also can come from beyond us just as they lead us beyond ourselves.

As children (and as adults!) we read stories, we imagine ourselves in different worlds and different roles; we see and are inspired to see ourselves as capable of great feats of courage and creativity, of love and generosity. We develop the skills to bridge the gap between the "real world" and the world of our imagination and to create a different future for ourselves and others. We write symphonies and novels, create and test scientific hypotheses, develop new medicines to vanquish old enemies, build cities (starting with the ones we made of dirt and toy cars), and philosophical systems, and homes, and families and in every conceivable way we become witnesses to and mediators of transcendence. It is what we are made for, after all.

On Prisoners and Solitary Confinement:

I have written about solitude and prisoners once before a number of years ago now in Notes From Stillsong: Prisoners as Hermits. I did not write specifically about solitary confinement and am ambivalent about the possibilities of experiences of transcendence within solitary confinement or in regard to some there becoming hermits. While I do not want to limit God and either his will or power to bring life out of death, meaning out of the absurd, or, in this case, solitude out of isolation, it remains true that the person requires certain resources to help this process. Transcendence  implies not just being open to the Transcendent but also having some means to express this and to develop our openness further. Access to books and Bibles, paper, writing implements, a musical instrument, art materials, etc, are just some of the tools (resources) I have in mind here. Ordinarily God works in and through such things.

Prayer is a privileged way to the Transcendent but usually this develops in stages. We see this when we move from meditation to contemplative prayer. It is usually a mediated reality. Entering the biblical story frees our minds and hearts to some extent and opens us to the Word of God. It provides characters, values, relationships, and situations we can imaginatively interact with --- interactions which both encourage the growth of the light and help check the darkness in our own hearts. Drawing, Writing, and Reading all do something similar. Occasional conversations with others is also usually an important and even indispensable resource here as well --- especially when that someone has the capacity to help us negotiate the trap of living in our own heads and hearts, and thus too, of believing everything we think or experience is the voice of God.

Solitary confinement of itself is certainly an example of an enforced and unchosen isolation, and God can certainly move through the walls and bars of this cell as through any other. Some few may well need little else and be gifted with relatively unmediated or direct experiences of God. Generally, however, such confinement must also have some minimal resources which allow for both the mediation of the Transcendent and for our own  experience of transcendence. When this is true, when there is both physical solitude and sufficient even if minimal resources allowing for mediated reception, response, and expression, then yes, it is entirely possible for the prisoner to find him or herself transfigured into a hermit or someone with the heart of a hermit.

The Continuing Need for Healing and Therapy:

One of the indisputable truths of physical solitude, especially as isolation, is that it tears down before it builds up. When that isolation is forced on us then it becomes doubly damaging. Consider what happens when someone's family shuns them, especially if that is an extended event. Not only are they cut off from the ordinary source of formation and education as a person capable of real intimacy, but they have been rejected and hurt by those who, more than any other (except God) are meant and assured to love them. Even when one discovers and experiences the Transcendent in a way which redeems the experience of shunning, the hurt and pain are real and will need to be dealt with. Often, it will take serious healing before one can even understand the extent and import of the experience of transcendence that was also involved. The pain and loss is simply too great.

Moreover, genuine experiences of the Transcendent take time to bear recognizable fruit. Unless healing occurs, this fruit may never be fully realized or realizable. One may survive the immediate experience and have been transformed by it, but whether that is more ultimately for the better or worse will ordinarily take time to really manifest --- not least because the capacity for good and bad, creativity and destruction, are both contained in the experience of physical solitude or isolation. Still, I can speak of developing the "heart of a hermit" in some essential or fundamental sense during (for instance) a period of enforced and extended isolation whenever transcendence is experienced in ways that overshadow the destructive dimension of the isolation. Such a heart is ultimately necessary for any genuine hermit.

But whether that heart (which has been shaped both for ill and for good, so to speak) will lead to the life of a self-deceived and self-deceiving individualist, that of a misanthrope, or a narcissist with room for no one but herself, or whether it will mature into the edifying heart of a true hermit who responds to God's call and chooses the silence of solitude because she loves God, herself, and others --- the heart of one who (appropriately) persists in that response with courage and fidelity --- is a question only time and real healing will answer. As with the parable of the weeds and wheat or better maybe, the parable of the soils, we simply can't see or know what the tender green shoots of that heart will grow into; we do not know whether they will be truly nourishing to others or merely weeds, whether they will prove to be rootless or deeply rooted in God. We must let (and assist) them grow to maturity and for that to happen care of all sorts, often including therapy, is necessary.

Meanwhile some will eschew healing (including therapy and spiritual direction) and play at being hermits while their woundedness keeps them psychologically and personally crippled. The "witness" they give to the Transcendent is superficial at best and entirely unconvincing. Others will avoid such pretense but, no less crippled, act out their loss, anger, and pain on the world around them in other ways. And some will seek healing in all the ways it is necessary so that their own witness to the God who transfigures a disedifying and barren isolation into an edifying and fruitful solitude is profoundly convincing and helpful to others.

* One of the most profound and cogent analyses of "the transcendent function" in the human person is Carl Jung's. I am not unaware of this analysis but my focus here is a specifically theistic model or notion of transcendence and experiences of "the Transcendent". In fact, I think the two models, especially with their similar notions of dialogue and teleology are profoundly complementary. Jung's analysis certainly explains the above example of the "music of the universe." Jung himself, while speaking of the unconscious used the words numinous or holy to describe dimensions of the experience of transcendence and "the transcendent function" to describe the dimension of the human person that mediates between conscious and unconscious; I do so in a deliberately and explicitly theological sense to describe the dialogical nature of the "communion with God" whom we know as the authentically human being.