Solitude for a Soul
(a reflection by Willy Effinger)
I read somewhere that a person cannot ascend to a spiritual height as long as his mind and heart are enslaved by the dictates of this world. I strongly believe that one must find solitude in order to survive – solitude within and without. As long as we are just numbers or statistics in a mass of society, we will be led by the mechanics of the society and begin to act like mechanical units, rather than people. A person displays responsibility, love, compassion, mercy - just to name a few of the important aspects of a balanced life. To that end, we must search and uncover the interior self. Society needs to be knitted together of such “real” people; otherwise, it will fall apart. It will become abusive, hateful, violent and selfish. Does it sound familiar?
Sometimes, due to self-interests or society's false directions, our lives too can become “unreal” - far away from the way we were meant to be. I know that some will say that faith in God is unreal and reality is the world. However, He who fashioned us, Who created the world and all it contains is Reality (reality with a capital R); nothing, in my humble opinion, can be more real than the One Who is and was and always will be.
We need to step back from the things that befall us, all the things which do not contain or embrace “Reality”. We need to look at all the issues from the outside and let them go in order to understand them. If we hold creatures or created things too close to us, we will have a hard time to see them as they really are. When we separate ourselves from them, we can evaluate more clearly. We can begin to see created things in the light of the One Who created them. Knowing that God is within other creatures, even those we may not like, perhaps we can also begin to appreciate them as they really are.
Great monks, hermits, founders of religious orders and Doctors of the Church have found the way in solitude – many of them in the desert. They were drawn to the desert because there was nothing to distract them; it was a wasteland where man could not waste anything, not even a thought. It could not be exploited; it was a barren wilderness. In that nothingness, they learned who they were and how God was working in them. It was a one to one encounter – a creature standing, naked and poor, before the Creator. Faith, discipline, perseverance and trust were the only tools need to achieve their ultimate goal – an intimate relationship with God.
It was not always easy. Remember the story of the Israelites who wandered for forty years in the desert. Was it pointless? No, God was forming them; He wanted them to be His people again. He taught them to trust in Him, to rely on Him, to humble themselves before Him, to put themselves last so that God might reign in them again. The prize, as we all know, was the promised land!
Let us also understand that the desert is a place of death, of foul creatures, of thieves hiding from the law. In the desert, it was believed in days of old, the devil roamed to test and destroy whatever life there may be. Jesus Himself was tested in the desert three times but triumphed. On the other hand, the Israelites were tested when Moses was up on the mountain but they failed miserably! Prophets, monks and holy ones were all tested.
Not everyone who went to the desert of their own accord made it. Those who did, by the grace of God, have become great teachers for us. Those who have gone through the desert experience have conquered despair; they have shown us that we can never consent to despair, nor cover it up with worldly things. We have to face it, trample it down, even wage war against it. Despair is a modern-day wilderness, an abyss seemingly without end. The more society disregards the “Reality”, the more despair creeps into daily life. Let us never be defeated. Let us always cling to the Cross – the instrument that can conquer despair. Even though the Cross may remind us of suffering and pain, we cannot forget that it leads to another capital R – namely the Resurrection in Christ Jesus!
So,
find solitude within your heart or at a retreat house; regularly find
the place where you can withdraw and gain the courage to victoriously
fight the war against the onslaught of life. Don't give in and don't
give up – always recharge your spiritual batteries with
Christ's love. Rely totally on His promises, for He is “Rexus”,
the King of kings.