Solitude
Many humans, and Christians in particular, can be averse to the thought of being separated from our own kind. To go out of the circle, away from the fire, and look into the night is something we rarely seek, and often outright dread.
Still, there is an inexorable call away from the group. Often we shout it down or shrug off the thought tapping at our shoulder to get out attention. We find ways to shuffle closer to the center, linking arms and lives tightly with those around us to keep from being pulled away. To leave must be certain death.
And yet, life (with whatever flavor of divinity or conscious intent you do or do not admit to) finds a way of placing many of us out on our own. We panic, dashing about, stumbling in the dark with only one thought … to get back to the safety of the circle we know.
In this solitude we begin to ask how this could have happened. We want to throw blame on someone or something, even ourselves, for this isolation and vulnerability. This must have been a failure of love or reason on some basic, elemental level. No one should ever feel this way.
We react this way because we do not know why this isolation exists. At first it is seen as punishment or abandonment. Surely we have been left for dead. Before enduring it, there is no way to understand what good could come from being pulled away from the joy and light and safety of our tribe.
In the end, isolation is often not about punishment or learning objective things about the world around us, or even looking back with new perspective on our community, though these two benefits often come along for the ride.
You must go alone into the wilderness to become comfortable there. You must stay there until at last your pulse slows, your mind clears and you let go of the panicked desire to return. You cannot hold your breath and close your eyes until it is over. This is because solitude is not something to be endured. It is a place of discovery, and an attitude of inflexible endurance prevents the change you must undergo. To simply wait it out would be like standing at a trailhead refusing to walk, believing your resistance will make the hike shorter.
When you can breathe quietly and be still in an overwhelming, present, experiential solitude, then you are beginning to become yourself. This is the beginning. From here comes all community. Togetherness is not the reliance and dependence of intertwined souls, but the coming together of those who are at home in their own company. At the point you can begin to practice being yourself in silence, without approval or censure, you are finally becoming a solid thing rather than a collection of reflections of the people around you.
In this solidity you have the anchor to which you tie the public self. From this center of being you can re-enter the dizzying world of being together with people. This anchor is the knowledge of what can be given away and what must be kept back. It is understanding the difference between the self and what comes from the self — the difference between your soul and mind and the art or commerce or love they produce and give by existing.
Being together parts of the self are given and received — dreams and expectations and demands traded back and forth. This is a beautiful thing, and the essence of community. It can be suffocating and crushing when these gifts become trades and leveraged advantage of clutching dependence. Only when they come freely, out of a centered and calm soul do they give life and bring freedom.
Eventually, as you build on this solid anchor, you may be strong enough to be in the truest community, that of being almost completely lost in the mutual giving up of the products of the self. This is true unity with others. It is where the self has not been obliterated, but is almost invisible behind the gifts and works which proceed from it.
But first, you must discover the self. The soul is a subtle thing, and can only be truly heard in silence. It is like the Milky Way, obliterated by the light of our gathering together. You must go out and sit, waiting in the darkness, for your eyes to adjust before you can see it. Once you know it, have seen it and held the essence of the self in your hands, then you must begin to know it deeply to understand what can be given away. At last you will be strong enough to let the giving happen.
This is the road to solitude and back. It is a road we needlessly fear, and yet it is the only road to the true self. Into the darkness and silence, away from the fire and into the night. For it is out in the darkness that secrets are whispered; secrets of an intimate and present universe. Secrets of our unexpected selves.
