Loneliness vs. Solitude

Loneliness: Alone someplace. Restless for companionship.
Solitude: No longer pulled apart by elements in the environment. Able to percieve/understand this world from a quiet inner center.

Nouwen says that our lives constantly fluctuate between these two poles: loneliness and solitude. The elements that influence this fluctuation are largely beyond our power to control - "too many known and unknown factors play roles in the balance of our inner life" for us to be able to fully understand where we are on this continuum. But as we become incresingly aware of the existence of these two poles and attentive to the little fluctuations we experience from moment to moment...we are no longer lost and we can make conscious and intentional moves toward solitude.
A first step in the direction of solitude might be to watch for times when I seek to secure comfort in a person, job, hobby, movie, book....iPod. Coming to the realization that nothing can satisfy the loneliness I feel. As I turn to God to satisfy my loneliness, I find that inner center from which I can observe and engage with the world...with greater clarity and understanding.
Solitude is the key to right action flowing from a right heart - a heart made right by intensive communion with God's presence in that secret inner sanctuary.

Loneliness? (again)

"God uses those who can understand the times..." ~J. Kang

Henri Nouwen was a man who "understood the times"...and God did, and still does, use him in the transformation of people's hearts. In the beginning pages of Nouwen's "Reaching Out," he gives a slicing diagnosis of, particularly, American life (though much, I am sure, holds true in other cultures).

We have an innate loneliness inside...and we don't really know what to do with it! We carry a "false expectation that we are called to take each other's loneliness away." By operating on this premise, we enter relationships and "burden others with these divine expectations." The result? Our relationships are excurciating...tiring...suffocating. I think this pervades our culture more than most of us realize.

Nouwen notes that we in America are suspicious of closedness; yet our obsessive openness itself becomes superficial, fun of "empty chatter, easy confessions, hollow talk, senseless compliments, poor praise, and boring confidentialities."

See what I meant by "a slicing analysis"?

He slices through the heart of our culture, giving a clear cutaway view of the contents.

Empty chatter, easy confessions, hollow talk, senseless compliments, poor praise, and boring confidentialities...

How much of my talk, how many of our conversations, consist of these busy nothings? How often do we delight in open, "heart-exposing" conversations? --And we act in these conversations as though it is a beautiful and rare occurance, a seldom and meaningful treat....when in reality, we are only spouting off as we normally do.

Lord, give me grace today to be attentive...to notice empty chatter, easy confessions, hollowtalk, senseless compliments, poor praise, and boring confidentialities. To see the pervasive loneliness around me and within myself. To be quiet...as a means of guarding my inner sanctuary and as a service to others, choosing not to contribute to pointless crusade of conquering lonliness by human means. Help me to stay attentive.

Loneliness?

"An impatient person is unwilling to wait upon God." ~J. Kang

Patience is key; a virtue that does not come easily or naturally to me. Yet if I had it...much of the pressure I feel to move ahead would dissolve. And it is a hot pressure. I feel it. I succumb to it--more often than I'd like to admit. A person who waits on God's timing will most likely not be moving, at least in certain ways, according to the unspoken and omnipresent timeline of society.

Think about it - what the reward of patience would be...

Less pressure now to move, move, move.

Greater peace.

A quieter heart - more able to know His heart.

The best long-term result

A better formed/forming heart.

Isn't this more attractive to me than always pushing ahead, pressured for the temporal pleasure of fitting in to the society that surrounds me? Like Juno, I find that normalcy just isn't really my thing. As far as major life transitions...I haven't been much for following the "timeline" that so many people seem to expect. And is there anything really wrong with that?

So why continue allowing that pressure to affect me?

"A waiting moment will never be a wasted moment." ~J. Kang

"If this entire universe is a desperate attempt of love to incarnate itself, then 'important duties' which keep us from helping little people are not duties but sins - or am I all the while trying to justify my own failure?" ~Frank Laubach

Everything in the surrounding culture would tell me that I am somehow failing because I am "behind" - meaning that I have not, at my age, accomplished the things "normally" accomplished by an individual at my age. But perhaps the duties of normalcy are, or can be, sins that keep me so busy with my own life/accomplishments that I have no time to do things that God would have me do.

Buckner in Honduras...

Things are progressing with the shoe drive. These kinds of activities can so easily become just another thing to do. I read an article on Buckner's site the other day that reminded me of the reason we're doing the drive...reminded me that what we're doing really is going to change lives.

Honduras Ready for Buckner Aid

Talking to a member of the youth group last night, I got a glimpse into another heart for service. Zannie was planning on school-related trip to Europe--she decided not to go, not just because of the money. She said she'd rather give the time/effort/money to helping others. Cool, huh? From a high school junior.

Love God, Love people. Isn't that Christ's command? But doing so will require getting off our collective butt and acting on behalf of others.