Category Archives: loneliness

Daily Riches (CV Era): Finding Refuge in Silence (William Alexander, Henry David Thoreau, Michael J. Fox, Elizabeth Kubla-Ross, Richard Rohr, Ralph Waldo Emerson)

Posted on by under Asceticism, coronavirus, loneliness, Self-care, Silence, Stillness

“Silence is the universal refuge.” Henry David Thoreau

“I began to practice creating as much external silence as I could. The television was unplugged, and a large Japanese screen placed in front of it . . . . Television is not an enemy, at least not to me. . . . I just need to let go of that part of me that’s addicted to noise and movement of any kind. Bill and television together create a frightful synergy of torpor and listlessness. I stopped listening to the radio in my car, and I only play music in my home when I’m actually listening to it, doing nothing else. I was amazed to find that I, great fan of the blues, didn’t know the lyrics to half the songs I had in my library. The music had been, well, background noise. As the days turned to weeks and months, and then, a year or two had gone by, something happened. I began to seek silence, more and more. Noise hurt.” William Alexander

“There is no need to go to India or anywhere else to find peace. You will find that deep place of silence right in your room, your garden, or even in your bathtub.” Elizabeth Kubla-Ross

“The Desert Fathers and Mothers focused on these primary practices in their search for God: 1) leaving, to some extent, the systems of the world; 2) a degree of solitude to break from the maddening crowd; 3) times of silence to break from the maddening mind; and 4) ‘technologies’ for controlling the compulsivity of mind and the emotions. All of this was for the sake of growing a person capable of love and community.”  Richard Rohr

“Let us be silent, that we may hear the whispers of God.” Ralph Waldo Emerson

“If only you would be altogether silent!”
Job 13:5 NIV

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • “Social distancing” has created an epidemic of loneliness. I want to hear the voice of someone–anyone. At the same time I need times of silence “to break from the maddening mind.” Could you use such a break?
  • I love the idea of sitting in the tub, alone in the dark–quiet, warm water, bubbles. I remember reading about Michael J. Fox doing that for hours after his Parkinson’s diagnosis–because it was all he could do–and to sort things out. As Thoreau says, silence can be a refuge. Can you come up with a way to experiment with silence as a “technology” for controlling the maddening mind? . . . to experience that “universal refuge?” . . . as a way of hearing “the whispers of God” now, when maybe you need them the most?

Abba, let me often disappear into the silence–to quiet myself, to experience peace, to hear your whisper.

For More: Lucky Man by Michael J. Fox

 

 

 

 

 

Daily Riches (CV Era): Seeing Solitude as a Gift (Jennifer Stitt, Hannah Arendt, Pythagoras, and Frederich Nietzsche)

Posted on by under "Being" with Jesus, coronavirus, Desolation's Gift, Embracing Losses and Limits, loneliness, Solitude, Spiritual Formation

“In the morning–solitude; . . . that nature may speak to the imagination,
as she does never in company.” Pythagoras

“In the 20th century, the idea of solitude formed the centre of Hannah Arendt’s thought. A German-Jewish émigré who fled Nazism and found refuge in the United States, Arendt spent much of her life studying the relationship between the individual and the polis. . . . She understood that freedom entailed more than the human capacity to act spontaneously and creatively in public. It also entailed the capacity to think and to judge in private, where solitude empowers the individual to contemplate her actions and develop her conscience, to escape the cacophony of the crowd—to finally hear herself think. . . . In our hyper-connected world, a world in which we can communicate constantly and instantly over the internet, we rarely remember to carve out spaces for solitary contemplation. We check our email hundreds of times per day; we shoot off thousands of text messages per month; we obsessively thumb through Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, aching to connect at all hours with close and casual acquaintances alike.  . . . We crave constant companionship. But, Arendt reminds us, if we lose our capacity for solitude, our ability to be alone with ourselves, then we lose our very ability to think. We risk getting caught up in the crowd. We risk being ‘swept away,’ as she put it, ‘by what everybody else does and believes in’—no longer able, in the cage of thoughtless conformity, to distinguish ‘right from wrong, beautiful from ugly.’ Solitude is not only a state of mind essential to the development of an individual’s consciousness—and conscience—but also a practice that prepares one for participation in social and political life. Before we can keep company with others, we must learn to keep company with ourselves.” Jennifer Stitt

“Flee, my friend, into your solitude! I see you dazed by the noise of men . . . .” Frederich Nietzsche

“A time is coming and in fact has come when you will be scattered, each to your own home.
You will leave me all alone. Yet I am not alone, for my Father is with me.”
Jesus, in John 16:32 NIV

Moving From the Head to the Heart

  • Many of us are confined at home with others. If that’s you, how can you make a plan “to escape the cacophony of the crowd?”
  • Others are home by ourselves but with lots of distractions. Instead of constantly seeking connection, can you try to learn from Jesus, to be “not alone” even when friends are unavailable?
  • Some important things never happen “in company.” Can you imagine some important changes in your life that could happen simply because of enforced solitude?  . . . values rediscovered? . . . “normalcy” redefined? . . . new intimacy with the God who is present in the stillness?

Abba, I choose the solitude that is forced upon me, and want to welcome it’s priceless gifts.

For More: Invitation to Solitude and Silence by Ruth Haley Barton

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Richer By Far (CV Era) – Loneliness As a Navigational Aid To God

Posted on by under coronavirus, darkness and doubt, Desolation's Gift, Downward Mobility, Embracing Losses and Limits, Emotions and Spirituality, loneliness, Solitude, Uncategorized

“If [as the Burt Bacharach song says] Loneliness Remembers (what happiness forgets) then the emptiness of loneliness reminds me of what happiness does not remind me of. That God is more, is greater, fuller – limitless, even. When I am spent He is still full and longing for me to turn, in my vulnerability and scatteredness, to His vast heart of loving provision for my soul. When I feel forsaken and alone – in those moments – I am gifted with an innate holy prodding to submit to no other substitute for satisfaction or comfort. So as great as happiness is in its moment, loneliness by contrast, is not a dead end. It is a navigational aid.”  Jennifer @ blogspot

“Paradoxically, I have found peace because I have always been dissatisfied. My moments of depression and despair turn out to be renewals, new beginnings. If I were once to settle down and be satisfied with the surface of life, with its divisions and its clichés, it would be time to call in the undertaker…. So, then, this dissatisfaction which sometimes used to worry me and has certainly, I know, worried others, has helped me in fact to move freely and even gaily with the stream of life.”  … “Only the man who has had to face despair is really convinced that he needs mercy. Those who do not want mercy never seek it. It is better to find God on the threshold of despair than to risk our lives in a complacency that has never felt the need of forgiveness. A life that is without problems may literally be more hopeless than one that always verges on despair.”  Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island

“If only one person would show some pity;
if only one would turn and comfort me.”
Psalm 69:20

  • Many people run from problems like loneliness, depression, and despair. Can you imagine these unwanted feelings as a kind of unexpected or disguised gift?
  • Have you ever allowed loneliness, depression or despair to be a “navigational aid” to lead you to God? What exactly would that look like for you?
  • Can you see “downward mobility” in all of this – that what seems painful and frustrating might actually be beneficial? …that “downward mobility” might be far superior to “upward mobility?”

Abba, remind me when this happens to me.

For More: No Man Is an Island by Thomas Merton

Song for the day: It Is Well With My Soul

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