Category: SolitaryLife

Social alienation is a person’s feeling of disconnection from a group – whether friends, family, or wider society – with which the individual has an affiliation. Such alienation has been described as “a condition in social relationships reflected by (1) a low degree of integration or common values and (2) a high degree of distance or isolation (3a) between individuals, or (3b) between an individual and a group of people in a community or work environment”.

Social alienation

I am reading the papers that were presented at the 1975 St David’s Meeting on the solitary life. A must-read for anyone interested, especially in the Anglican context.

A modern world, and maybe even a modern church, mistakes being “alone” for being “alienated”. The recluse is alienated from society – feels no connection with the world – the solitary is alone with God. According to the desert Christians, the solitary has a profound “solidarity” with all human beings. I feel alienated in most social contexts!

Alienation is “abstraction over the individual”. A role is something I do, vocation is something I am. A role (abstraction) works from the outside in, a vocation works from the inside out.

Where I am in all that I have absolutely no idea!

The church is a community that exists because something has happened which makes the entire process of self-justification irrelevant. …

The church points to the all-sufficiency of Christ when it is full of people whose concern is not to separate others from the hope of reconciliation and life by their fears and obsessions. A healthy church is one in which we seek to stay connected with God by seeking to connect others with God; one in which we ‘win God’ by converting one another, and we convert one another by our truthful awareness of frailty.

Silence and Honey Cakes: The Wisdom of the Desert, 33-34.

The solitary‘s aloneness allows them to live beyond comparisons. And, the solitary‘s humanness allows them to live in deep communion with other people.

Whatever happened to hand-written letters?

I want to share something from Appendix V from the section dealing with spiritual direction for hermits:

Frequent meeting is not desirable, and most questions might be dealt with by correspondence.

Soul-friendship (a much better word for spiritual direction) should be via hand-written letters: sitting down, planning, and then physically writing with a pen. Some people journal – I do with a fountain pen. So a hand-written letter to your soul-friend asking questions, outlining problems, and celebrating “victories” would be a great way for a “hermit” (or anchorite) to receive (and maybe give) spiritual direction. One could keep the letters for later re-reading, say after a year.

What do you think?

I read the following and thought it is a great image.

Ships sink not because of the water that surrounds them, but because of the water that gets into them. Don’t let what surrounds you fill your soul and drag you to the bottom.

Patriarch Paul of Serbia

Sometimes people ask if I follow a “rule of life”. The short answer is no: not in any formal written sense. But, of course, the answer is much more involved. And part of the problem is people misunderstand, through no fault of their own, the terminology involved. So maybe a very short definition of terms, how I use them, is necessary.

A very helpful place to start is the following:

The monastic life is based on obedience, the anchoritic life on independence; one requires the renunciation of the will, the other the exercise of free choice.

Can there be such a thing as an ‘anchoritic rule’? by Bella Millett in Catherine; Yoshikawa, Naoë Kukita. Anchoritism in the Middle Ages: Texts and Traditions (Religion and Culture in the Middle Ages), 34.

Hermits are “monastic” and anchorites live in the grey-area of church life. So for me:

Hermits are individuals who live alone following a rule within the context of a religious community (monastic). Hermits wear habits (of their order) and have a religious name. These individuals have taken vows and, therefore, their physical needs are provided by the community. Hermits are accountable to their religious superior via a confessor.

Anchorites (or the modern term solitaries) are individuals who live alone within the context of a parish. These individuals do not follow one of the rules but rather use guides for asceticism. Normally there is no habit or religious name. The important difference is these individuals do not make vows, especially the vow of poverty. Hence these individuals are responsible for their own physical needs. Anchorites live in the grey area of religious life, being neither laypeople nor religious, and often outside of ecclesial control. In modern terms, these individuals often have a spiritual director.

In the English tradition, hermits were itinerant while anchorites were enclosed. The enclosure was more intense for females, often including being walled in but also including a garden or outside area. Male anchorites had more freedom to meet people and priest anchorites had access to the church. Anchorites were also often questioned on their theology by church authorities and were considered heterodox.

Somewhat mudding the water is the use of the term “Diocesan Hermit” within the 1982 Roman Code of Canon Law (Can 601 and 602). This term, as I understand it, includes both of the above. It should also be noted that neither of the above takes a vow (or the like) of celibacy – it is simply a natural part of the life.

I use Common Worship: Daily Prayer for my Office. It is simply more me and offers options that are not in other Anglican Prayer Books. During the Epiphany season, the following is part of the canticle at Morning Prayer:

You will call your walls, Salvation,  ♦ and your gates, Praise.

Common Worship: Daily Prayer.

It is from Isaiah 60. I am not sure what the original meaning is (and I do not think I can) but to me, it speaks of my vocation. I am called by God to wait. And I wait within the context of solitude, which for me means a place.

When I step outside my four walls, I step outside of my calling from God.

For me, solitude is not an escape from the world. It is not a time of recharging for something else. The more I live here, the more I feel a sense of deep longing for this place of waiting. I live an enclosed life, which means the calling is lived within the context of my four walls. And here I wait. So I do call my walls “salvation” and maybe I should name my gate “praise”.