The Gift of Solitude

If I make my bed in the depths, you are there.   Psalm 139:8b

     It's good to have some time alone every now and again.  During summer and Christmas breaks over the past few years, I've had opportunities (sometimes wanted, sometimes unwanted) to be in solitude.  I come from a small town in Alabama that many people leave when they get older.  There are not many job openings that bring people back to settle down in our area, nor are there a whole lot of public works or famous attractions.  There's just a sky in which you can see the stars clearer than any other place I know; there's lots of open space and livestock; there's family, football, hard-working people, and plenty of room for imagination.

     It seems like the number of friends who have moved away continues to increase as time passes.  I guess that tends to happen when people finish school, get jobs, and start new families.  It often makes me feel like I'm in a strange place when I'm staying with my folks.  Sometimes I feel like an outsider, even though I know this is where my family is and where I grew up.  For me, it's a good place to go when I want to be alone for a while.

     I never really considered extended times of solitude to be a gift until I read Richard Foster's Celebration of Discipline.  In the book, Foster enumerates solitude as an intentional spiritual discipline that can open people up to God's grace.  Since the current rhythm of my life has some space for it, I thought I'd share how it's gone for me.  In my own experience, solitude is a very humbling thing.  It shows me that many of the different spheres of my life (school, church, friend groups, family) can get along just fine without me.  It brings me face-to-face with my own smallness, usually dashing some form of my egocentricity against the rocks of reality, or revealing to me just how insignificant things are that I thought were vitally important.

     It's also a good discipline to practice for meeting with God.  I think of Jacob, who wrestled with God all night at Peniel (Genesis 32:22-32), of Moses, who had several one-on-one encounters with God (Exodus 3:1-4:17; 19:3-6; 20:18-21), of Elijah, who ran away to die in failure, yet then traveled forty days to meet with God on Sinai (1 Kings 19), and of Jesus, who "often withdrew to lonely places and prayed" (Luke 5:16).  Jesus spent some time in solitary prayer before doing things like selecting the twelves apostles (Luke 6:12-16), walking across a lake in the middle of a storm (Matthew 14:22-25), and going to willfully give his life for a sinful world (Mark 14:32-42).  There have been some times of individual prayer in which God has met me powerfully.  Other times it feels like it takes all of me to keep faith alive and let loose shaky prayers.  I think I've learned from both kinds of experiences.

     Solitude can also be useful for subduing the noise that accompanies our lives.  When we disconnect from the hurried whirl of computer screens, road signs, appointments, and responsibilities, we regain the ability to focus and listen.  We make time for encountering mystery, like the immeasurable mystery of God and the mysteries of who we are ourselves.  We can rest in who Christ is and what He has done.  We can evaluate the trajectory of our life and take our emotional pulse.  We can seek God's direction over what we should next do in life and get his evaluation of our recent undertakings.  We can heal from the new hurts we've accumulated as well as the old scars and weaknesses that perennially haunt us.  We can journal, draw, meditate, and explore.  It creates space for us to simply be.

     I've found that solitude really can be useful for extended periods of time, but I also believe it reveals to us that we are not meant to be alone.  It can be good for seeking God, decompressing, getting clarity, and healing, but ultimately time alone is meant to prepare us to be more fully engaged in community.  If solitude is long-term, it can be stifling and depressing.  Go watch Into the Wild if you want a good illustration on how isolation debilitates.  

     Solitude should free us to be more present to the people we encounter each day.  It should give us fresh purpose and vigor as we make decisions in life.  It should renew the capacity within us to show love to the people who are in our lives.  I think the healthy practice of solitude is a great tool that God can use in us.

     Do you need to practice solitude?  This time of year often can free up some time for us to take a mini-retreat with God.  I'd encourage you to do so.

The Humanity of Jesus

For we have not a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sinning.  – Hebrews 4:15 (RSV)

            This probably won’t come as a surprise to you, but the Christmas season tends to get me thinking about Jesus and the Incarnation (enfleshing).  One of the ideas that really struck me this past semester as I was reading through Tom Oden’s Classic Christianity was the scandal of particularity.  I used to think Jesus had encountered every sort of joy, suffering, and circumstance imaginable to humanity.  In my mind, Jesus was some generic personal catch-all for the totality of the human experience.  I thought that He in His human nature intimately knew all things in all times and all places.  But Oden brought up points that I had never considered previously.  The fact is, you and I, as well as everyone else who has ever lived, have encountered situations that Jesus Himself never did.

            It doesn’t take a brilliant theologian to figure out that Jesus never rode in a car.  He never talked on a phone, sent a text message, or used a computer.  He never spoke English, Chinese, Russian, or any other of the vast preponderance of modern languages that make up our world today.  He never voted in a public election, never wrote a research paper, and never tried His hand at the multiplicity of jobs we clock in for today.  Jesus never dated anyone or married.  He never invested in the stock market and wasn’t purely related to his nuclear family.  I could continue to negatively define Jesus’ life, but I think you get my point: there is a lot that Jesus didn’t do.

            So how is this 1^st century Jewish guy supposed to relate to us and how are we as 21^st century people supposed to relate to Him?  Can someone who never posted on Facebook or used an Apple product really sympathize with us in our 21^st century world of technocratic globalization?  The answer is yes, because by His choosing not to be a superhuman who experientially knew everything, Jesus is just like you and me.  Limited.  Vulernable.  He came from a certain family at a distinct time in history in a specific cultural context, as we all do.  This is what theologians have referred to as the scandal of particularity.

            Regardless of how culture and technology have modified how we interact down through the ages, some things remain fundamentally the same – things like God, humanity, and sin.  No, 1^st century Palestine did not have Wi-Fi, but it had people who loved, hated, argued, blessed, hurt, desired, won, failed, worked, cried, forgave, killed, and worshipped just as people do today.  At the root level, Jesus has sufficiently encountered all that it means to be human.  He wasn’t married, but he loved people and navigated relationships.  He most likely wasn’t abused as a child, but he took all the abuse and shame that the forces of evil had to throw at Him on the cross.  He knows loving acceptance and He knows painful rejection.  He knows the vigor of youth as well as what it’s like to get older and have aches and pains.  Human.  Yes, that’s the word. 

            Further, Jesus did not shed His humanity when He ascended into heaven, but He is still fully God and fully human.  He is representing us before God in His flesh, pleading the merits of His sacrifice over the Church and interceding for us according to our needs.  We have a sympathetic God-man in heaven mediating for us from the place of His own encounters with temptation and human experience.  We have a friend who is farther along than we are, who has wrestled with the same enticements and has overcome them, who can help us live as He did.

When we so eagerly desire to be gods, God the Son taking on flesh grabs our attention like a gunshot.  The great humility and sacrificial love present in Jesus’ humanity amazes me and challenges me – I hope that it always will.  In Jesus, God said yes to humanity through the Incarnation, He said yes to humanity all throughout Christ’s life on earth, He is still saying yes to humanity through the heavenly session of Christ, and He will always say yes to humanity when we worship the Triune God afresh with resurrected bodies.  Such a fixed, pursuing love for a rebellious creation goes beyond my capacity to understand and leaves me in awe.  What else could I do but believe and enter into this wonderful love relationship of grace and obedience? 

  So in the midst of my bouts with pain, doubt, fear, and apathy, I often find the still, small voice of the Holy Spirit reminding me: Yes, it is a good thing to be alive.  In Jesus, God says yes to abundant life and humanity.  Always. 

What answers do our lives give about life and humanity?