When
I was a pastor on the campus of the University of Illinois, our two sons, Jacob
and Abraham, were with their mom in Sheboygan, Wisconsin, during the school
year. The first time the boys came to be
with us, probably over Thanksgiving break, our neighbor said to Tracy, “Mike
just seems lighter, happier, more at ease.”
Yes. True. There is no question but that when my boys
were with me or going to be with me, I relaxed back into my life. I could be totally alone at work, knowing my
kids or other family members are at home, and just . . . be at ease.
Tracy and I are in Sawyer now because
the best vacations I have had were when we made the trip to southwest Michigan
to Tower Hill. I would figure out what I
wanted to do for a preaching series in the fall, load myself up with the
necessary books, and then look forward to my spiritual practice of study. The first week would be a time when I would
set my routine, read and take notes, before anyone else got up and then onto
the beach. I would begin to unwind in
the second week, the solitude allowing my soul, stretched and beaten up a
little bit, to get brave enough to surface once again.
Celtic poet and mystic John O’Donohue wrote that our soul loves the shadows. And it is important to give our soul time out of the public spotlight so that when we later step out in front of others in courage and
Sometimes my solitude has been found
by playing on a softball team. Weird,
right? But it corresponds with my love
for team process, laughter, and physical exertion. The most fun I had in Billings, Montana, was
playing softball on a Crow softball team—one of the few white boys on the
team. Team members would make fun of my
different ways. But when I am part of a
team, my jazz starts to emerge. I know
my right rhythms but I also know how to creatively play with those
rhythms. That then needs to be something
I pay attention to in my marriage. Do
Tracy and I decide things together? Is
there a lightness in our relationship that provides grace for our hard work? Is there a regular rhythm to our sexuality
that is dependable in physical exertion and makes me feel connected to
her? If not, our souls tend to not show
up for one another. We don’t have the
necessary solitude together.
And where I at one time thought
myself to be a total extrovert, I am recognizing that it is not about being an
introvert or an extrovert but about finding the necessary balance that is
healthy for me, that allows my soul to come forward at the appropriate time to
be vulnerable, take risks, extend myself out into the world. That does not happen by accident. Solitude is an intentional practice of
hiddenness, simplicity, and protection that says to our depths, “I want you to
be courageous. I want you to be
loving. So I will find places and
moments of shelter for you.”
Spiritual teachers in this age talk
about it again and again. There is a
difference between loneliness, or even being alone, and solitude. Solitude is about a defined intentionality
and presence. Being alone is not
necessarily by choice and our definition.
We have all had that experience of being alone in a crowd. Solitude is about intentionally making
necessary space for our souls to feel safe and then emerge. Solitude allows our souls to show up. I think solitude even allows our souls to
show up when we know we are alone, having to row against the tide of popular
opinion or criticism.
Our
first Scripture passage is a reminder that God sees us as fundamentally
beautiful and wants us to see the created beauty in the world. In our second Scripture passage, the
disciples have been out and about, doing God’s work, Jesus calls them away to
rest, away from the crowds. In Jewish
and continuing in Christian tradition, the wilderness or desert is that bare or
stark place where shade and shadow are prevalent. It is a place where the soul can fully
present itself without fear. If we do
not find that desert or wilderness on a regular basis, our soul recedes too
deeply within us and is not available for ourselves or for others. In the same way, Mohammed would retreat to
the mountain. It was there he found his
shade and shadow, his fierce landscape.
Director of Duke University’s Islamic Center, Omid Safi, talks
about finding the cave. As he has aged,
his experience is similar to mine. He
used to find his bliss with a brunch of a dozen friends or more, music playing
in the background, and weighty conversations about heart and soul. Now he finds it in smaller gatherings with
guests of his own heart. Solitude, Safi
believes, must be found at times when we are intentionally alone and
intentionally out in the world—cycles and rhythms we are listening for. We find serenity and tranquility in the
presence of God alone or in community.[1] This solitude becomes more fully rich when we
are intentional about showing up in each place.
What are the people, the places, the experiences, that put us at
ease in the world? How do we put
ourselves with those people, in those places, and rhythmically through those
experiences so that we regularly put ourselves in the presence of God?
Author and activist, Adrienne Maree Brown, encourages people
into practices of solitude that also bend toward Sabbath rhythms—rhythms of
rest, play, and celebration. Brown wrote
the book, Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds. She offers this advice to activists who
want to help bend the arc of history to transformative justice. She wrote during the Trump Administration,
believing practices of solitude absolutely necessary, so she encourages people
to:
– rest whenever you can, deeply and well. act as if you can
store up sleep and you need as much stored up as you can get.
– reflect on what the longest-term commitments of your life are,
and see if you need to make any adaptations in order to actually center those
commitments in your daily life. don’t put it off, don’t wait on answering your
calling.
– have a summer that feels like a pleasure and a celebration as
an act of resistance against an administration that seems to want to break us
with misery. tap into childhood fun self, get a kids swimming pool even if
you’re an adult, count lightning bugs, watch sunsets, make out in summer
rainstorms, go someplace you have never been, even if it’s in your same town,
eat ice cream, wear booty shorts, cultivate your joy.[2]
I
want to make it clear. This was not your
pastor encouraging you to wear booty shorts.
It was included in a long quote.
But, if that’s what helps you to get your solitude groove on, well then,
I guess, wear booty shorts.
It is to remember, after Jesus calls
the disciples in for intentional rest and solitude, they then go out and feed
the 5,000 and heal the mass of people who are being laid at their feet. The gospels let you know the kind of hunger
and poverty that was ever-present at the time of Jesus. This poverty was so pervasive that disease,
deformity, and death were rampant. Just
by healing people, Jesus is saying that this was not the life God intended for
the people. I think that is what
continues to plunge me into my faith.
That no matter how difficult these days of climate catastrophe and
political polarization may be, the time of Christ was a time of immense
suffering, persecution, and death. The
gospel accounts may have been written as a way of saying, “This is not what God
had in mind. God is active and moving
and wants you to not only to be fed but also to be healed, have the health care
you need, when the wider world seems to encourage your demise.”
To do that work, to extend ourselves
for that work in vulnerability and risk, we need to find that balance of
solitude which guards our hearts, gives them rest and shade. In fact, it is the very nature of our souls
that they love the shadows, a warm glow of candlelight, the path that is not so
well lit, more stark and barren than blazing with neon light.[3] But what puts us at ease so we might then be
available to the wider world? When we
find these people, places, and experiences, we are called to make that solitude
regular, rhythmic, and persistent. It is
the curse of our age in which we say, “Yeah, I need to do more of that,” rather
than ask ourselves, “How do I make that a part of what I do every year, every
week, every day?” Come away and
rest. Regularly. Not just when you have time. God has made the Sabbath as a cathedral in
time for us. Amen.
[1]
Omid Safi, “Solitude is about more than just being alone,” OnBeing columnist, August 2, 2017, https://onbeing.org/blog/omid-safi-solitude-is-about-more-than-just-being-alone/.
[2]
Adrienne Maree Brown, “Star Wars and summer,” July 4, 2018, www.adriennemareebrown.net. I am hoping we might have a study of her
book, Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds.
[3]
John O’ Donohue, Anam Cara: A Book of Celtic Wisdom (New York: Cliff Street Books, 1977), pp. 80-81.
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