So I started my day at 4am. I had the most beautiful time of meditation and then said Morning Prayer. I watched the sunrise across the Bay. But now, at 10am, I am ready for lunch!
I really like an early start to the day. By nature, I am an early bird. The great thing about being solitary is that I get to organise my day my way. So lunch at 11am is ok. And, btw, I have a rest after lunch.
Fr Henry Power Bull was Superior General of the Society of St John the Evangelist and the following is from the First Anglo-Catholic Congress:
The Religious Life is that state, or form, of life in which, obediently to the inspiration or call of God, a soul is consecrated to God in Jesus Christ under perpetual vows of Poverty, Chastity, and Obedience. There are many forms of this consecration, as there are also many objects with which is it is undertaken; and the Church has need of all. But strictly for the Religious state, as it exists in the Catholic Church, there is required the entire and permanent surrender of self, according to some fixed and recognised rule based upon the Evangelical Counsels, that is, upon the observance of a real spirit of Poverty, Chastity, and Obedience.
And about the enclosed life from the Cowley Evangelist:
It is no self-centred idle life, no dream of prayer, or following of self-will. It is a burning desire of love to die to self and to live to God, in great humility, and with an ever increasing intensity of worship and self-oblation.
The hole was a trip. They threw me in a six-foot-by-nine-foot room with just a mattress on the floor and a toilet. During the day they would remove the mattress and make me sleep on the concrete floor because they didn’t want me to be comfortable. It was pretty inhumane to be in a room twenty-three hours a day with the light always on, but you get used to it. You become your own best company. In a weird way, you get your freedom in the hole.
Mike Tyson
In antiquity as well as in the Middle Ages there was an awareness of this longing for solitude and a respect for what it means; whereas in the constant sociality of our day we shrink from solitude to the point (what a capital epigram!) that no use for it is known other than as a punishment for criminals. But since it is a crime in our day to have spirit, it is indeed quite in order to classify such people, lovers of solitude, with criminals.
Kierkegaard
BustedHalo has an InstaLent photo starter. Great idea so I will do it on my Insta and here.
I have been thinking of how to “define” the contemplative life. And I stumbled across this:
Contemplation in this context does not mean contemplative prayer as such, but a quality of life that is contemplative: one that is lived vertically in relationship to God rather than horizontally in relationship to time and those around us.
SLG, Sisters of the Love of God. Monastic Vocation (p. 54). SLG Press. Kindle Edition.
The “context” is the enclosure. But the definition works well for the solitary life.
Write about your dream home.
The house I live in right now! I know that is a little boring but it is actually true. And it is not about the physical side of the house. It has a place to pray, a useful kitchen, and a place to sleep. It also has room for my books. What makes it a home is the connection to the community of faith – past, present, and future – that it proclaims to me and to the community that walks past the front door.
While I do not see or interact with a lot of people, I know I am part of a community. And that is what moves it from a physical house to a home. Yes, the community stresses me (“me” as a particular individual with their own problems) but it also protects me and helps me to truly find myself.
I am truly in love with this place. It is also a house that is set aside by the faith community for prayer and solitude. It is a liminal space – in the world but not of the world. In fact, I am very much hoping to end my days living here in this community.
Is there anything you feel too old to do anymore?
Ok, I’ll bite – what am I too old to do anymore? People! Not that people are “wrong” or I am a misanthropist. I like people. But only in small amounts.
I find an “encounter” with a person very draining. That is a real interaction which is not transactional. To put it another way, to see a person as an end in themselves and not a means to an end for me. Not what I can get out of the interaction but what I can give to the other person as a person and not an object. Yes, I can transact business with people – I can go to the shops or get a coffee and not freak out. But I do not want to transact with people, I want to encounter people. And that means I can only take so much!
That sounds like a backhanded compliment to myself!? It has taken me a long time to work all of that out. Aloness, for me, is not about the evil of people but rather about being ready for the goodness of people.
Sorry if that makes no sense.
Instead, the practice of a contemplative is to enter a sort of suspended time in which he feels alone in the presence of God. “You could say the Centering Prayer in Grand Central station at 2 p.m.,” says Brother Horton. “I wouldn’t recommend it for a beginner, but I’ve done it. It’s like breathing.”
A Hermit of the Heart
I just wanted to share the above – a number of “Anglican solitaries” mentioned. Read!
Today is 100 days in The Anchorage. It has been strange at times. And often I wonder what I am doing here. But it has been spiritually rewarding. Mass today was magnificent with a great sermon. And Jesus is present!!!!!
The image above is a crucifix that I have carried with me.
