Solitude

In a sense I am poorly qualified to write about solitude, having lived alone for less than two years and then married. But solitude has been a part of my own Journey in Four Directions, and I need to incorporate it.

The fourteenth century - if you'll cast your mind back - was a time in which communal living was the norm. Clifton Wolters writes in his introduction to Richard Rolle's The Fire of Love:

Medieval life was intolerably public.... everybody slept in the same room, beds (where they existed) could take up to six people.... To sensitive souls the only escape into any sort of privacy must often have seemed an anchorhold somewhere, a hermitage, or a religious house. It is understandable that solitaries were numbered by the hundred in the fourteenth century.

Wolters had previously made the point that Rolle, as a hermit, was a different kind of solitary from an anchorite (or rather, anchoress) like Dame Julian of Norwich. She was confined to her anchorhold for life - following a ceremony of burial with no detail spared (see Wolters' introduction to her Revelations of Divine Love). Rolle was free to move about, to a certain extent, though the bishop would probably have asked questions if he abused the freedom. Hermits, though technically "solitaries", were not reclusive or isolated. They were very much involved in the life of their communities, often maintaining roads and bridges, for example, or looking after the outcasts of the community such as lepers. Anyone who has read much medieval or pseudo-medieval romance will have encountered a helpful hermit who aids the (often wounded) hero and gives him hospitality - food, a bed and advice.

It seems to me that there is a place in the twentieth century for something of the same spirit as these hermits, with their community service, their involvement from a kind of inside/outside position.

The question is, how do we do this in light of the differences between fourteenth-century and twentieth-century (soon to be twenty-first-century) life? If the fourteenth century was basically communal (in Europe, we are talking), the twentieth century is surely not communal enough. We already live in an individualistic age; many people already live alone. Why encourage what is surely a bad thing?

Well, very few things are unmixedly bad. Certainly, community - community that actually works - is a difficult, challenging and necessary thing in an alienated and individualistic century. It is particularly difficult because very few of us have any history of living thus; we don't know what we're doing, and often do it zealously without sufficiently considering the consequences. I have been a part of a very badly done attempt at "community", and know whereof I speak.

However, I think there is a place, at the same time, for "intentional solitaries". "Intentional" is a good buzz word, currently, meaning (as far as I can tell) that you have some purpose in mind for what you're doing, rather than happening to do it without really thinking about it. I intentionally chose to live alone, for the benefits it gave me - and I freely confess that some of what it gave me was a freedom from the irritations I experienced when living in what was intended to be a "community". I chose whether there was music in the house, and what it was; whether there was a television in the house (there wasn't); what time the lights were switched out and the house was silent (except for my neighbor's television, because his living room is on the other side of my bedroom wall - no doubt a wise provision of God to give me practice at forgiveness). Everything was where I put it last (which is not to say that I could remember where that is). The level of cleanliness and tidyness was the level I was comfortable with - no higher, no lower. Meals occured when I wished and consisted of what I felt like (or could be bothered making). If someone asked me out for a meal, I didn't have to ask anybody, or even tell anybody; I could just go.

There were drawbacks. Eating in company is enjoyable; one of the highlights of my work day was sitting down to lunch with colleagues. (Before I lived alone, I used to read a book at lunchtime.) There was nobody to do any jobs around the house except me. There was nobody to talk to if I wanted to talk when I get home.

All this to say, I chose to live alone because I enjoyed it, and found that it gave me benefits - peacefulness, greater enjoyment of the social times I chose to have, independence - which I valued. But did this make it good?

If this is all I did - if living alone was purely for my benefit - then no, it didn't. It could be simply an act of selfishness because I didn't possess, and couldn't be bothered gaining, the virtues which are required to live successfully with other people. To move from "person who lives alone" to "hermit" (in the medieval sense), I would have had to do more with my solitude.

Medieval hermits, free from the demands of an extended family, were able to serve the community as a whole. Free from the demands of a cenobitic (common-life) religious order, they could serve the Church as a whole, and often did, providing spiritual direction to a far-flung constituency (by the standards of the day). They were able to spend uninterrupted, and in a sense unprogrammed, time in prayer and contemplation, while the cenobitic orders moved to a daily timetable which not only set times for prayer to begin, but times for it to end, as well.

Applying this to modern life, I find this. There are opportunities to move from "single person living alone" to "celibate solitary" - in other words, to become "intentional", to make wise use of one's manner of life. I did this when I first drafted this chapter, coming home to write rather than go to lunch with people from church. (I am doing this again as I write a revised version while my wife is out of town.) I had the option to withdraw, and it is an option to use wisely - not all the time, in other words. (See my digression on involvement.) If the extra time, the extra peacefulness, the extra opportunities for reflection and prayer which were available to me as a celibate solitary were put to the service of the community as a whole, then I was being "intentional" in my solitude. If they were used to serve me, I was not.

I was not "solitary" long enough to realise the full benefits of solitude. In small part because I realised that I was using my solitude irresponsibly and would probably continue to do so unless prevented (and for many other reasons), I chose to replace solitude by marriage. Inevitably, I have less time to write. But if I write less about grace, I learn more about it, and this is, I think, a good thing - for the writing, and for me.

If you have the opportunity to be an intentional solitary, do so. But do it for the health of your soul - which means, serve the community of which you are a part with your solitude. Do not retreat, do not withdraw, to make yourself comfortable. Journey outward from the silence and the stillness.

Mail me - but don't spam me.

I love . Do you? Click here.

You are visitor number to this page since 5 July 1998.