An older lady sat alone on a park bench in The Villages, a Florida adult community. A man about her age walked over and seated himself on the other end of the bench. After a few moments, the woman broke the silence. “Are you a stranger here?” she asked.
He replied, “I lived here years ago.”
“So, where were you all these years?” she wondered aloud.
“In prison.”
“Oh, my! Why were you in prison?”
He fixed her with a steady gaze and quietly said, “I killed my wife.”
“Oh, I see!” the startled woman exclaimed. She let the silence hang between them. After a moment she ventured, “So…you're single...?”
We've all been lonely (but hopefully not that lonely). You may remember the Beatles song “Eleanor Rigby”:
All the lonely people
Where do they all come from?
All the lonely people
Where do they all belong?
Loneliness is usually temporary, but sometimes chronic. It occurs when we are separated from an important relationship. Or sometimes when we never experienced the intimacy we crave to begin with. But loneliness is not at all the same as aloneness.
Can you be alone without being lonely? Theologian Paul Tillich put it this way: "Language... has created the word 'loneliness' to express the pain of being alone. And it has created the word 'solitude' to express the glory of being alone."
Can you be alone without being lonely? Can you spend time by yourself without craving noise or company of other people? Have you discovered the glory of quiet time spent alone, time spent listening to your soul? Solitude brings with it gifts that come from nowhere else.
Writer Ardath Rodale counseled, “Give yourself time to listen to who you are.” That is advice too important to ignore: give yourself time to listen to who you are. Have you noticed that, in English, the word "listen" contains the same letters as the word "silent"? In order to listen deeply, we must be silent. Alone. And in our quiet aloneness, we will hear what can be heard no other way.
That is the glory of solitude. Are you ready to give yourself that gift?
- Steve Goodier
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Popular author and speaker Ken Blanchard sometimes tells a powerful story about Red, a corporate president who, as a young man, learned an important and life-changing lesson. Red had just graduated from college and was offered an opportunity to interview for a position with a firm in New York City. As the job involved moving his wife and small child from Texas to New York, he wanted to talk the decision over with someone before accepting it, but his father had died and Red did not feel he had anybody to turn to. On impulse, he telephoned an old friend of the family; someone his father had suggested he turn to if he ever needed good advice.
The friend said he would be happy to give Red advice about the job offer under the condition that the young man takes whatever advice he was given. "You might want to think about that for a couple of days before hearing my suggestion," he was told.
Two days later Red called the man back and said he was ready to listen to his counsel. "Go on to New York City and have the interview," the older man said. "But I want you to go up there in a very special way. I want you to go on a train and I want you to get a private compartment. Don't take anything to write with, anything to listen to or anything to read, and don't talk to anybody except to put in your order for dinner with the porter. When you get to New York call me and I will tell you what to do next."
Red followed the advice precisely. The trip took two days. As he had brought along nothing to do and kept entirely to himself, he quickly became bored. It soon dawned on him what was happening. He was being forced into quiet time. He could do nothing but think and meditate.
About three hours outside New York City he broke the rules and asked for a pencil and paper. Until the train stopped, he wrote – the culmination of all his meditation.
Red called the family friend from the train station. "I know what you wanted," he said. "You wanted me to think. And now I know what to do. I don't need anymore help."
"I didn't think you would, Red," came the reply. "Good luck."
Sorry, I don't know if he took the job or not. But Blanchard reports that, years later, Red headed a corporation in California. And he always made it a policy to take a couple of days to be alone. He went where there was no phone, no television, no distractions and no people. He went to be alone; to meditate and to listen.
The French writer and Nobel Prize winner André Gide reminds us to "be faithful to that which exists within yourself." But how can we be faithful when we don't really know what is inside?
The answer for me is to be quiet. To still my mind...and to listen. I'll soon know what to do.
-- Steve Goodier
Image: flickr.com/Tijmen Gombert
Demographic experts tell us that there is a general spiritual awakening among people of various faiths. Some are returning to "organized" religions. Others are seeking spiritual answers along other paths. However it is done, people are realizing the importance of a healthy spiritual dimension to their lives.
One man tells about a time when his wife suffered from a headache. She took medication and lay down, but nothing seemed to help.
Her six-year-old daughter was concerned about her Mommy's health, so the ailing woman asked her if she would like to pray for her. Little Leia said that she would. Leia put her hand on her mother's head and prayed the only prayer she knew: "Lord, thank you for this food..."
I imagine that the words she uses are not important. In fact, I don't know if any words are really adequate to express our deepest spiritual desires. Moreover, what seems most crucial is not so much how "good" we are at praying, but that we simply pause regularly to nurture the souls. Prayer is a dose of spiritual medication that, taken daily, can enhance all of life.
Leonardo da Vinci spent countless hours ruminating upon things of the spirit as he worked on his famous canvas of the Last Supper. He spent so much time meditating in the cloister that some of the monks in the community became concerned. They remonstrated with the artist about his wasting precious time and money. "Why do you spend so much time with us in prayer when you have come here to work?" they wondered.
Leonardo answered, "When I pause the longest, I make the most telling strokes with my brush."
I do not feel I am all that good with prayer, but I am sure I'm not much good without it.
-- Steve Goodier
Image: Flickr.com/Johan Bergs
I have noticed that the best way for me to get a few minutes of solitude at the end of the day is to start washing the dishes! And a few minutes of solitude is something I need frequently. A time to be alone. A time to reflect.
I think there is a difference between aloneness and loneliness. Aloneness is necessary for the soul to thrive - even to come alive. Not loneliness.
German theologian and pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer was arrested and eventually hanged for opposing Adolf Hitler. While in prison, he wrote letters to his fiancée. The last letter she received was dated Christmas 1944. Speaking of the war that separated them, Bonhoeffer wrote this:
"These will be quiet days in our homes, but I have had the experience over and over again that the quieter it is around me, the clearer do I feel a connection to you. It is as though in solitude the soul develops senses which we hardly know in everyday life. Therefore I have not felt lonely or abandoned for one moment."
I can be alone without being lonely. In fact, those times of solitude are a necessary respite for a beleaguered soul, set upon by the pressures of life. I need to take whatever moments I can to just be still.
Only in quiet waters things mirror themselves undistorted," says Hans Margolius. "Only in a quiet mind is adequate perception of the world." So I'll find time to ... be still.
-- Steve Goodier
Image: freeimage.com/danijela
