The Nine S': Solitude

Solitude

The term ontological aloneness has lived with me for some time. Years, actually. Recently someone asked if that meant I was lonely for Christ? Well, yes. But it means the aloneness of being, that we are alone in our selves, and only not alone when we truly realize and actualize our being through Christ, with Christ, in Christ. And very much being in the Trinity. 

Then to realize that the not alone is not of ourselves, but all, in all, of Christ, that we did not find ourselves in Him, in love of Christ, but that He loved us first, filled our ontological aloneness with His Being, His Love.

Solitude is necessary, for it is part of the reality of our human ontological aloneness.  Never can we be fully united with other humans or any tangible, finite objects or even intangibles of earthly nature. Yet it is possible to have union with Christ even while in our physical forms. The union is fleeting because our living, temporal, earthly bodies, minds and emotions cannot sustain for more than short periods of time, the power of a pure, divine union with God. 

Yet the soul, once it experiences a taste of that divine union, will yearn for more, and thus yearn for heaven, to be with Christ in this union always and forever. Such union is the indwelling of Christ, the divinely ontological fulfillment, the quintessential peace of pure, holy love.

Solitude teaches us the reality of our ontological aloneness and brings to conscious awareness the reality of our desired union with Christ. Experiencing solitude imposes the active benefit of solitude as a means of awareness and accessibility of Christ to our souls.  Solitude helps separate our souls from earthly distractions, and opens the plenitude for Christ. The possibility of divine union then advances toward reality of divine union. 

If constantly or often with others either physically or in our thoughts, we are not in solitude. If we do not create the space for being alone, nor augment that awareness of our aloneness by silence, solitude will slip through the fingers of our desire and be lost to being spiritually alone rather than secure the promise of holy fulfillment, the mystical marriage, union in Christ.

We experience solitude while in the womb. Although the embryo is within the mother, united by life-sourcing umbilical cord, and known to hear sounds, there is solitude. Within womb solitude, is there more awareness of God? This is not consciously recalled. Fetal spiritual awareness cannot be ascertained, but once born, we at some level and degree become aware of ontological aloneness.  We somehow know God then and now. 

And from the saints and mystics who, following Christ's example, removed themselves to a quiet place to pray, alone in physical solitude or alone in that inner room of the heart,  communication with God and the embrace of pure love was made manifest. Time and again we read the accounts of those who experienced God in silence and solitude, and many of us have encountered holy solitude, if but for a moment.

Anyone can learn solitude–even amidst a crowd. The key is awareness in prayer, awareness of the ontological aloneness that is ours, and the surety by faith of unitive companionship in Christ. By an effort of  understanding, intellect, and will, within the heart of the soul, solitude may be approached. 

At this level, the soul waits in solitude for God's touch. However, this action toward solitude may require previous actions depending upon how distant from the solitary womb experience one has come in essence and reality.

Some may need to do as with silence: peel back layers of activity and distractions: of people, places, and things tangible, and of thoughts and emotions. Find the inner room Jesus mentions and implant oneself there for prayer. Create an inner room of literal proportions, such as do children in closets, under beds, in tree huts, staring off into space or closing the eyes. We can enter into woods on a walk, or a spare room, attic, basement, or vehicle. We can go into an empty church and silently kneel before the Tabernacle. 

We can create space for the inner room within: while working, shopping, recreating, sleeping or worshipping. The spiritual inner room is yet more accessible once we have learned to go to within from without, having learned to close the doors and windows of our outer senses to temporal distractions. There, on the way to within, we meet the interior distractions, more layers to peel. But conceptualize the idea, and now desire and grasp the amazing vicissitudes of solitude.

Married couples may realize that while with one another, they are yet alone. Truly, for we all have ontological aloneness once we come to the awareness. And thus Christ all the more becomes our instinctual desire in order to be actualized. No sexual union will bring the type of completion and love that union with Christ will provide. As the Psalmist discovered: One day in Your courts, O God, is worth a thousand elsewhere....

Gaining the sense and sensation of solitude requires faith. Sometimes the truly alone of dark forces spurs doubts: Is this really best to feel so alone? Yes. Trust the goodness of recognizing ontological aloneness and the benefit of cultivating solitude. Learn to trust, to love, the actuality of spiritual union, of divine companionship, that results through and with the time and space created, and then set aside for communing in solus Deus, God alone.

While humanity turns more and more to visual encounters, or to filling the ontological aloneness with people, possessions, activities and power, there is never satisfaction until one finds the love of Christ, of union in Him, beyond the with and through. 

And to secure this multi-dimensional, supernatural embrace, of union with the Divine, we must take the necessary steps of awareness, desire, and the sloughing off that which stops us from not only the silence of love, but the necessity of solitude. We progress from without to within, and within to without, learning to love that which most enhances the opportune essence of solitude in Christ.