Isolation and solitude

Solitude can be a double edge sword and I guess both sides have to be dealt with if the experiences is to be fruitful.  There is a basic aloneness that I think most people feel which at times can be quite acute, making the experiencer feel like a real outsider even if surrounded by friends.  It can be frightening for some, others can take it more in stride, especially if in the past they were able to deal with it in a creative way.  I would suppose it could be said that the only way out is to go in.  For this underlying aloneness I think is always present, it just comes up for air at times and in taking that breathe, it is then that it is felt.  I am of course speaking from my own experience and I can truthfully say that I do not do well with it.  When young I really had trouble with this existential situation, and now as I get older I think I have a handle on, more or less, perhaps 'less' being the operative word.

Yet I also know that it is important for me to respond, or attempt to in a manner that moves me forward and not into ways of seeking to escape a state that really can't be avoided for long.  Noise, music, keeping very busy can help a bit, yet in the end this inner feeling of aloneness will only resurface.  This space projected outward can feel like dead air, a place of nothingness because of the feeling of being disconnected.  It can also seem that ones experience is unique, which furthers the sense of isolation, even though this feeling is false, for again it is just part of our human condition. 

We can run from this, seeking even more activity and noise, which can lead to fatigue and depression.  What if one does not run, what happens?  At first there can be actual terror and discipline is needed to simply stop doing so much, letting go of distractions and allowing the silence to simply be.  Something good can happen once the fear of this isolation is let go of, for it will more often than not turn into solitude, which is something different altogether and very life giving allowing deep wells of energy to be released. 

In the silence something happens, a response is felt, and invitation gently proffered with no pressure either way.  I suppose I could use the word "God", but as Panakkar says; "God is a generic term for different theistic theories of God".  Usually a God that is outside, up there somewhere, different, distant even if thought of as love.  We may think of God as just another 'being' in a universe of beings, existening like us, just bigger, more loving and yes because this God is a being, can also be meaner and more wrathful than any human because of the power that is projected.  In other words, God is created in our image and likeness instead of we being made in God's image.  This is not the experience that solitude brings, but something different, nameless, deeper and more intimate than any of our projections placed on what we call God can offer.  Perhaps this is what is feared, for what we call God is often more idol than real, it can't be any other way.  Growth is knowing when to let go of these limited images of God.

Even among ourselves it can almost be impossible to understand one another.  The boxes we can put each other in do not hold us, for we are also deeply mysterious to ourselves and especially to others.  Though again, there can be a compulsion to try to freeze others into some sort of 'being' that is really death to any kind of relationship that has any depth.

I feel that my Christian faith is still a very young force in the world.  For indeed, if the simple so called things told us were lived out, well the world would change overnight.  Solitude allows us to slowly grow in understanding in what Jesus is asking of us, and not only Jesus but there are many other holy men and women from different traditions that say much the same thing as Jesus is reported to say.  I am not downplaying the role of Jesus, I can't being a Christian, but God is at work in the world in ways incomprehensible to us because, perhaps, we don't yet understand the messages given to us.  I believe that we have yet understood the message because we simply don't 'see'; again I am speaking more for myself than for others. 

People want abortion to go away, so they want laws to implement this.  However in the past before abortions was a 'right'
there were over a million illegal abortions done a year.  Laws will not do it.  Christians and other people of faith know that change can only come from the bottom up.  Not from the top down.  Community, support and acceptance of those who are in need would go along way in lessening the need for abortion.  Contempt, name calling and judgment is something Christians are not called to do.  Jesus mentioned that we should not judge, probably because we don't now how to 'see' as he did.  It is not simple, but if christians want a better society, then perhaps going deeper into some of the sayings of Jesus would help.  Love of self and neighbor, to treat others as one would want to be treated, in order to be understood takes a great deal of insight and self knowledge and in order to get that solitude and meditation are needed for that kind of self knowledge to grow and take root.

If ones faith cannot raise the ones professing it to consciously swim against the current of our present culture, to learn to deepen compassion and empathy for others, then they have nothing to really offer to those around them.  They will just  be absorb into the prevailing ideas of society that are unconsciously taken on and lived out.  The gospel can only be preached and heard if it is seen as something real, lived out in the nitty gritty everydayness of life and not something saved for Sunday.
 
So the practice of solitude has a deep communal value to it.  For in solitude we face our own inner demons, which leads to a greater understanding of others.  This deepens our ability to truly see others as brothers and sisters who accompany us on our way.  Not as someone to be self righteously judges and condemned.  One of the fruits of solitude is the growth in compassion for self, which is then applied to other 'selves'. 

People need to be 'seen', loved, embraced and accepted.  If that is missing then only then the status quo will remain for a time, then things will get worse slowly as the years pass.