Converting Loneliness into Solitude

These words of Henri Nouwen's are so powerful of themselves that I think they need no commentary of mine:

In discussing [solitude and the need for it], three words are important: aloneness, loneliness, and solitude.  You and I and all people are alone.  Aloneness is a natural fact.  No one else in the world is like me: I am unique.  No one else feels and experiences the world the way I do: I am alone.

Now, how do I deal with my aloneness?  Many people deal with it through loneliness.  That means you experience your aloneness as a wound, as something that hurts you, makes you miserable.  It makes you cry out, "Is there anyone who can help me?"  Loneliness is one of the greatest sources of suffering today.  It is the disease of our time.

But, as Christians, we are called to convert our loneliness into solitude.  We are called to experience our aloneness not as a wound but as a gift—as God's gift—so that in our aloneness we might discover how deeply we are loved by God.

It is precisely where we are most alone, most unique, most ourselves, that God is closest to us.  That is where we experience God as the divine, loving Father, who knows us better than we know ourselves.

Solitude is the way in which we grow into the realization that where we are most alone, we are most loved by God.  It is a quality of heart, an inner quality that helps us to accept our aloneness lovingly, as a gift from God.

In that place our activities become activities done for the other.  If we accept our aloneness as a gift from God, and convert it into deep solitude, then out of that solitude we can reach out to other people.  We can come together in community, because we don't cling to one another out of loneliness.  We don't use or manipulate one another.  Rather, we bow to one another's solitude.  We recognize one another as people who are called by the same God.

If I find God in my solitude, and you find God in your solitude, then the same God calls us together, and we can become friends.  We can form a community, we can sustain a marriage, we can be together without destroying each other by clinging to each other.

-from "A Quality of Heart"

Green-Eyed Monster

Iago: O, beware, my lord, of jealousy;
It is the green-ey'd monster, which doth mock
The meat it feeds on. That cuckold lives in bliss,
Who, certain of his fate, loves not his wronger:
But O, what damnèd minutes tells he o'er
Who dotes, yet doubts, suspects, yet strongly loves!

Othello: O misery!

~

Shakespeare was a brilliant man.  One need only feel the tearing effect of jealousy to know at once how truthfully his characters speak and how perfectly they enact the results of jealousy.

Throughout my life, I have found myself wanting to do everything—or at least everything that I perceive as good.  It matters little how many wonderful things I have done or how much I have accomplished, but as soon as I hear of someone else's amazing project I must be jealous.  I begin to wonder why others get to do all these spectacular things while I muddle along where I am.

Someone reminded me recently of how we all make up what is lacking in each other.  If I could do everything myself there would be no need of anyone else.  Yet because I cannot do everything—because after all I am not God—and because I am but one small part of the world's community, I must allow others to be good also.

Their goodness does not take away from mine.  Somehow jealousy twists us up inside so that we believe the opposite, but others' abilities can never lessen ours.

It is folly of course to draw our self-image from our accomplishments anyway, but of course we fallen creatures must persist in that folly.  Then we find ourselves crushed because someone else has done what we wished to do or is better at something than we are.  Yet there will always be someone we will perceive as better than we are at doing something we wish to do.  In such a populated world the statistics of that being true are incredibly likely.

However, that does not take away from our individual contribution.  No matter whether someone else may be better in a particular area, or even in all areas, we still have a part to play that no other can.  We may not know it, but the reality remains.

When we begin to know that reality with our hearts, then we can appreciate others' gifts and talents without jealousy.  That takes much humility.

Blessed John Henry Newman spoke beautifully of our personal vocations.  By reminding ourselves constantly that we are not our own, that we do not live for ourselves but for God, we shall gain greater confidence in accepting what we can and cannot do.  If I live to achieve something great for God, in the end it becomes about me and what I have done instead of what God has done.  Yet if I can truly live for Him, then naught else matters.

I will leave you with Newman's words:

God has created me to do Him some definite service. He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission.
I may never know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next.
I am a link in a chain, a bond of connection between persons.

He has not created me for naught. I shall do good; I shall do His work.

I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place,
while not intending it if I do but keep His commandments.

Therefore, I will trust Him, whatever I am, I can never be thrown away.
If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him,
in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him.
If I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him.
He does nothing in vain. He knows what He is about.
He may take away my friends. He may throw me among strangers.
He may make me feel desolate, make my spirits sink, hide my future from me. Still, He knows what He is about.