Self-isolation - an opportunity, not a problem


So - now we have all been ‘grounded’. For Jo and me, that is not (at present) too problematic: we have each other, we live in easy access to open country – and we are both introverts, so keeping social distance is normal! But for others, it may be difficult, and if the restrictions last for a long time, we will all struggle. Has the Christian tradition any insights?

For a start, there is much in the Bible about the spiritual benefits of solitude. Moses spent six days alone on Mount Sinai, before he entered into the presence of the Lord for another 40 days (Exodus 24:15-18.) Elijah too spent a full day and night on Horeb – after a 40-day solitary trek across the desert – before he experienced the presence of God in the ‘still small voice’ (1 Kings 19:12.) The wilderness was a lonely place, but also where one met the Lord; the Lord tells Hosea he will lead Israel into the desert and there ‘speak tenderly to her’ (Hosea 2:14.)

And in this season of Lent, we spend time with Jesus, who was led (or ‘driven’, Mark 1:12) by the Spirit into the wilderness for 40 days after his Baptism, to be tested in preparation for his ministry; we remember also that he continued to seek times of ‘retreat’ - “Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up…and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed” (Mark 1:35.) Luke tells us that before he named his chosen twelve, he “went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God” (Lk 6:12.) In similar fashion, Paul wrote of going ‘immediately into Arabia’ after his Damascus road encounter with the Risen Christ (Galatians 1:17.)

Those examples were followed by Christian believers from the 3rd century onwards, who left the comforts and temptations of the city, to go into the Egyptian desert, to live solitary lives, committed to pray as hermits. St Antony is probably the best known, with many artists depicting his lurid temptations. In time this flight to the deserts became the basis of the monastic life, reaching its acme in Benedict of Nursia, who (c 495) left his studies in Rome to live as a hermit in the hill country, and then organised groups of disciples who joined him into small communities. The Rule he wrote for them would be the basis of the religious life for the whole Western church. Key to this rule was, and is, the principle of ‘stability’. The monk was called to remain in the one place; and although life was lived in community, that community was separated from ‘the world’ by a physical and spiritual enclosure.

The nature of the separation varied from Order to Order – with the most extreme form in the Carthusian communities, which originated at Chartreuse in the French Alps, where Bruno and a small group of others gathered in what they called ‘the desert’ to live solitary lives, each brother having a separate cell, which they only left three times a day to gather in the chapel. Meals are taken and work and prayer undertaken in solitude.

The point is that times of solitude can provide a rich opportunity to draw closer to God - and also to find peace within oneself. Pascal wrote: ‘All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.’ C.G. Jung said, ‘People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own souls. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.’

It may be uncomfortable, but rather than bewailing this enforced seclusion, let’s embrace us, and see it as an opportunity – to spend time with God, to get to know ourselves better and become more fully the people we can be. Christians can remember, that wherever we are, we can trust Jesus’ promise, “Surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age” (Matthew 28:20)

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Doing Nothing

Laments