Wednesday 7/29/20 6:13 AM
Over the course of the past few months I have experienced a lot of solitude on my morning walks. The solitude seems even more profound when accompanied by the isolation and social distancing required by the pandemic. I have found my walks to be an empowering time in which I have become more aware of God’s presence and have been drawn into a deeper relationship with him. At the same time I mourn the loss of community regarding my job as a teacher, the interaction with my colleagues and my students on a daily basis. My solitude has brought both intimacy and loneliness.
In her essay “Thoughts on Solitude,” Wendy Wright writes about the paradox of solitude, that it can be experienced as both loneliness and grace. She writes, “…solitude is known to be gift and opportunity, a richly textured medium through which authentic intimacy with God and humankind might be fashioned. Yet at the same time, being alone is also experienced as a fearful reality. Our culture views solitude as a severe punishment, a confinement, reserved for the most grievous offenders against human codes of conduct. We tend to shun the solitary places populated by those left abandoned on the margins of human community: places were outcasts, misfits, the forgotten, the unloved and unlovable are hidden. Yet despite our shunning, the lonely sort of solitude is still all around us in the emotionally and spiritually troubled. For these, solitude is a desperate and desolate place. An alienated and isolated place in which hearts wither and hope is abandoned.”
During the past months I have experienced solitude as loneliness, but I also have had the good fortune to experience solitude as grace, in which I have developed a deeper intimacy with God. This morning I prayed for those who have the misfortune of experiencing the desperate and desolate aspects of loneliness without the grace of loneliness. I pray that God will reveal himself to them and that their eyes and hearts will be receptive to his summons to draw near and be loved.
