agri.church

On Sunday I didn’t really have space to talk about those times in life when we are stuck in silence. When we find ourselves alone and it is utterly unwelcome.

A friend shot me an email pointing this omission out to me and I am grateful. The desert fathers of the fourth and fifth century spent very long periods of time alone in the desert. I’m talking decades of solitude long! Crazy… right? Their writings bear witness to the sometimes torturous experience of prolonged seclusion. They describe fierce battles with personal demons that I can barely imagine. Yet, their seclusion was by choice. They chose to head off into the desert. And they always returned to ’sociey’ for periods of intense ministry to others.

Sometimes I think we need to recognize that this world is messed up, and sometimes circumstances in life lead to loneliness. Sometimes we find ourselves alone and it just plain sucks. Not every period in which we find ourselves alone can be transformed into a glorious experience of solitude with God, nor should we necessarily welcome seclusion every time it is thrust upon us.

But even then we still have a choice to make. Even when we’re stuck in the unwelcome silence, we can choose. We can choose to let our ‘inner capacity’ for love shrink into nothingness and retreat into self-pity or worse self-loathing. Or we can choose to let the alone-ness to stretch our capacity to welcome others when the time comes. It’s so easy to write… not nearly so easy to do.

I’d love to hear from others on this one. I’m willing to bet that there are others out there that have more to offer to this discussion than I do