Monday, October 31, 2016

The gift of friendship

Nouwen says that when we sense that there is no one in our life who truly cares for us and offers love without condition, and there is no place where we can be vulnerable with being used or rejected, we feel intensely lonely.


But the gift of loyal friendship, the kind that won't ever be revoked or fade away, can create a safe place where loneliness gives way to the warmth of trust and love. Loyal friendship is the sunlight that allows the seeds of loneliness to be transformed into the fruit of solitude.


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Saturday, October 29, 2016

Living with Heaven in View

I've been reading the Puritans' prayers and they have a different perspective on how they view the world. For them, living with Heaven in view means, at least in part, that we seek to live our lives here intimating what our lives will be like there.

So, if our experience in heaven is that God will be our sun, then they sought to live today fully realizing that He is our true source of energy and life.

If our experience in heaven is that God will be everywhere present, all powerful, all-knowing, then they wanted to live confident of His attributes: when they prayed they wanted to pray believing God is all-powerful; when they were alone they wanted to embrace the truth that we are always "with Christ"and under His protection and care.

If in heaven we will gladly accept God's will, the Puritans would ask, then shouldn't we live today with the heartbeat: Thy will be done. If we really believe that in heaven God's will is perfect and good, then it only makes sense that His will for us today is also perfect and good. So shouldn't we surrender our illusions of being in control and receive His will for our lives?

Jesus certainly lived His earthly life with kingdom vision and values. When He tells His followers to "Take up your cross and follow Me" He's telling us to live in the kingdom of heaven today as He is. He calls us to give up any practices and the mindset that sees this world as our home, He says we need to die to that wordly mindset (take up our cross), so that we might follow Him, embracing today what our experience of heaven will be 'up yonder.'
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Tuesday, October 25, 2016

Developing our Capacity

What's the value of solitude? When we are alone and don't have to carry on a conversation or check our phones, we are freed from the distractions of life. In the quiet of solitude, if we can also quiet our inner noise, we become aware that God is with us...and our thoughts can become conversations with our Father....prayers.



Learning to "be still" with God, develops our capacity to be alone without feeling lonely, because the quiet of solitude is transformed into the fullness of solitude.


And transforming loneliness into solitude has another promise....in our later years when loss and grief and isolation naturally become part of our experience, if we have developed our capacity to be alone with God, we'll know that even though we may be alone, we aren't really alone because we are with Him.


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Friday, October 21, 2016

Sacred Solitude

I can get freaked out when I'm all alone. Once I was telling a close friend what a scared-y-cat I am, and found out that before she became a Christian, she went to bed with a bottle of vodka and a loaded gun--even when the kids were home. I realized that I wasn't the only one that didn't like to be all alone.

So driving four hours by myself, in and out of cell phone coverage, especially driving after dark down the windy unlit highway those last 30 miles to get to St. Anthony's was unnerving. I tried to be brave, but it freaked me out. I was always so glad to drive up their driveway, having arrived. I hate being overcome with fear.

And then one day as I was driving to The Springs and I was overwhelmed with joy. Euphoria set in. It puzzled me. I had no idea what was going on, so I knocked on Sister Danelle's door, and asked if she had time to talk. She gently asked a few questions, and listened. I told her I was worried that something was wrong, I never felt free when I was alone. She said, "Perhaps there's nothing wrong, perhaps you are learning to trust." I knew as soon as she said it, she was right. I was learning to trust. I was being changed as the "with-ness" of God became a reality for me.

I was free because I knew I wasn't alone. Through prayer, my lonely place had become sacred Solitude.
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Thursday, October 13, 2016

Loneliness and Solitude

Luke tells us that Jesus intentionally went to a lonely place to pray (Luke 5:16). I don't like lonely places, yet Jesus sought them out. Why? I don't think He ever felt all alone...not until the Cross. He knew His Father was with Him so the lonely place wasn't lonely for Him--it was rich, deep, full, alive....it was solitude. The lonely place provided Him the opportunity to be free of distractions and the continual interruptions and noisiness of the crowds. There, alone in the desert, Jesus could commune with his Father. The lonely place offered Him the gift of solitude.

The lonely place offers us the possibility of adoration, getting lost in worship, enjoying friendship, intimacy, even union with Christ without interruption. It's when we are all alone that we can learn we are never actually alone. And that is a very important aspect of our spiritual formation.

Sometimes everything in our lives becomes dark. We feel all alone, maybe even abandoned, and fears immobilize  us. The Lord desires to replace our profound sense of loneliness with the rich knowledge that He is with us.

On vacation I have the opportunity to get up two hours before dawn and watch the sunrise. One morning dark clouds filled the sky, blocking my view of the first light of dawn. I sat in the darkness, no moon, no stars, no hint of dawn. Then the skies opened and I was in the middle of a huge tropical downpour. It poured down rain for at least ten minutes. But then, in just one tiny spot, the clouds opened,  revealing blue sky and the brilliance of sunrise beyond. I realized that in much the same way, we can be in the dark.We can think that we are all alone. The clouds of doubt and disappointment can block our view. But God is always there. Even when we cannot see beyond our intense loneliness, He is there. Always.

It seems that a significant aspect of our spiritual growth is learning to enjoy being all alone so that we learn we are never alone but always with the Lord. Receiving the gift of solitude is the beginning of the process of prayerfully allowing our lonely place to become a place of solitude, where the fear of being abandoned is replaced by the knowledge that Jesus is with us. We can pray and let our conversation with Jesus be so immediate, like friend speaking with friend, that we know we are not alone.

Grant, O Lord, that we learn to love the lonely place because it is there that we have the sweetest, unbroken communion with You.

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