Solitude as a Vocation

[Era Might]

Any thoughts on solitude as a vocation? I'm not limiting "solitude" to hermits, that's one particular type of solitude. 

[NadaTeTurbe]

I don't have any thoughts, but your recent prayer request made me think of Benoit Joseph Labre. I was wondering if you knew him. He wanted to be a monk. He could not be. So he went on the roads, living like a homeless, going from place to place by foot. 

[Era Might]

5 minutes ago, NadaTeTurbe said:

I don't have any thoughts, but your recent prayer request made me think of Benoit Joseph Labre. I was wondering if you knew him. He wanted to be a monk. He could not be. So he went on the roads, living like a homeless, going from place to place by foot. 

Sounds amesome, I'll read more about him. He seems similar to Peter Maurin, who was always in his heart just a French peasant.

[Pia Jesu]

On 5/24/2016 at 0:54 PM, Era Might said:

Any thoughts on solitude as a vocation? I'm not limiting "solitude" to hermits, that's one particular type of solitude. 

A couple great reads on the idea of solitude as a vocation are Thomas Merton's The Solitary Life and Notes for a Philosophy of Solitude.  Though written in the 1960's, his sense that "ours is certainly a time for solitaries and hermits" (Notes) still rings true today.  When Merton states that not all men and women are called to be hermits but all need enough solitude to find the "deep inner voice" of our true selves, I cannot help but believe that aloneness (and the desire for it...) is part of the human condition.  Seeking the reason for our existence, the meaning of our lives amidst the immediacy/struggles of our daily experiences is a tall order (albeit nearly impossible!).  Yet, if you add the idea of a "vocation" as a call from God to follow Him more closely or a call to holiness--we have no other choice but to retreat, to look within the solitude of our minds and hearts.  As this is oftentimes not a comfort zone, keep in mind the short poem Merton uses in the Introduction to The Solitary Life:  

Follow my ways and I will lead you  

To golden-haired suns,

Logos and music, blameless joy,

Innocent of guestions

And beyond answers.

For I, Solitude, am thine own Self

I, Nothingness, am thy all

I, Silence am thy Amen.                                                                                                                                                                 

 

[Era Might]

Bad formatting

14 hours ago, Pia Jesu said:

A couple great reads on the idea of solitude as a vocation are Thomas Merton's The Solitary Life and Notes for a Philosophy of Solitude.  Though written in the 1960's, his sense that "ours is certainly a time for solitaries and hermits" (Notes) still rings true today.  When Merton states that not all men and women are called to be hermits but all need enough solitude to find the "deep inner voice" of our true selves, I cannot help but believe that aloneness (and the desire for it...) is part of the human condition.  Seeking the reason for our existence, the meaning of our lives amidst the immediacy/struggles of our daily experiences is a tall order (albeit nearly impossible!).  Yet, if you add the idea of a "vocation" as a call from God to follow Him more closely or a call to holiness--we have no other choice but to retreat, to look within the solitude of our minds and hearts.  As this is oftentimes not a comfort zone, keep in mind the short poem Merton uses in the Introduction to The Solitary Life:  

Follow my ways and I will lead you  

To golden-haired suns,

Logos and music, blameless joy,

Innocent of guestions

And beyond answers.

For I, Solitude, am thine own Self

I, Nothingness, am thy all

I, Silence am thy Amen.                                                                                                                                                                 

 

Wow, thanks, the Notes for a Philosophy of Solitude sounds amesome. I found this summary and look forward to reading the whole thing.

http://www.hermitary.com/solitude/merton_notes.html

This in particular spoke to me:

Again, Merton attempts to refine his concept of the ideal solitary, who is not the non-conformist who begrudgingly adapts to the world. The essential point is that the solitary deliberately leaves his life behind and goes into the desert, physical or otherwise.

There have always been solitaries who, by virtue of a special purity, and simplicity of heart, have been destined from their earliest youth to an eremitical and contemplative life, in some official form.

Merton refers to the Carthusians and Camaldolese. He notes, however, that even these are not his ideal solitaries. His ideal solitaries are, rather,

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.

In retrospect, we can correctly count Merton himself among these

Particularly the point that a vocation, and solitude in particular, is not like graduating to something you are qualified to do, but a place where you work out all the things that drove you into the desert...i.e., you don't have to be rid of them before you enter into solitude, you enter solitude in order to really face them.

Also this:

The solitary must not merely withdraw from society ("a sick solitude") but transcend it. He renounces the group, defined by society's "aspirations, fictions and conventions," to unity with all persons in transcendence, supernaturally, precisely through the solitariness of each of us. Where society makes  each individual useful -- to its own fictions -- solitude makes the individual authentically useful to society, and, therefore, ready to transcend it. The solitary thus rejects everything that is contrived, everything that does not transcend. In this process, the solitary

must renounce the blessings of every convenient illusion that dissolves him from responsibility when he is untrue to his deepest self and to his inmost truth -- the image of God in his own soul.

The price of fidelity in such a task is a complete dedicated humility -- an emptiness of heart in which self-assertion has no place.

Merton insists that "non-conformity" cannot be rebellion, for this sets up new illusions, subjective ones  instead of social ones. This can be worse than accepting the social myth. But to guard against a false religion or a narcissistic mythology -- "a world of private fictions and self-constructed delusions" -- means becoming "fully awake," fully conscious.

Hence, solitude must be characterized by "emptiness, humility, and purity." The solitary pulls free of the diversions that alienate him from self and from God to live in transcendent unity.

His solitude is neither an argument, an accusation, a reproach or a sermon. It is simply life itself. It is. ... It not only does not attract attention, or desire it, but it remains, for the most part, completely invisible.

Merton stresses the distinction between the solitary and the individualist. The individualist does not seek transcendence, only a heightened self-consciousness, a higher form of diversion. He does not reject the social myth but maintains it as a backdrop to his own myths. He seeks not the hidden and metaphysical but the smugness of self-congratulations. In short, the individualist's model is not the desert but the womb.

So real solitude is not a flight from everything, but an attempt to give up all except the All, to embrace everything for itself, and not for yourself. And to learn to be kind to everything, because once you give up everything, you have no reason to judge, nothing to defend, nothing to justify.

This what I was trying to add in my comments, formatting not working above:

Particularly the point that a vocation, and solitude in particular, is not like graduating to something you are qualified to do, but a place where you work out all the things that drove you into the desert...i.e., you don't have to be rid of them before you enter into solitude, you enter solitude in order to really face them.

So real solitude is not a flight from everything, but an attempt to give up all except the All, to embrace everything for itself, and not for yourself. And to learn to be kind to everything, because once you give up everything, you have no reason to judge, nothing to defend, nothing to justify.

Edited May 26, 2016 by Era Might

[Pia Jesu]

Thank you, for sharing the excerpts, Era!

Yes...for Merton, each person exists in a solitary state that is "simply life itself."  Yet purposefully entering into that space requires a good deal of courage!  It is relinquishing the locus of control from outer or external things.  It is moving to a groundless state of being wherein we--in most cases--would like to avoid.  The beauty and simplicity of it all is that resting there (more like hanging in there!) can engender much freedom.  Rather than being afraid of our aloneness, we let it re-shape and soften us.  This is where we find our strength. 

It's interesting how Nancy Klein Maguire's book, An Infinity of Little Hours keeps showing up in VS threads.  Dom Cyril Pierce (aka "Dom Leo") has much to say about solitude.  In the Epilogue, he suggests that "One sets out in life with a few rudimentary ideas taken from someone else; the whole beauty of it is the learning, the entering into mystery in the darkness of faith, yet for me it is an inexhaustible reality into which each day I try to enter, letting go of every image and concept in a naked reaching into God as He is in Himself.  The immense love that God is has humbled me."  Write to Dom Cyril at Parkminster (St. Hugh's Charterhouse in England).  From the depths of his solitude, he will answer heart-filled questions.  I cherish the letter he sent me.