Tag Archives: solitude

Gimme a Break

Posted on November 25, 2019 | 2 comments

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Although every week is a work week for my department, today marks the beginning of what feels like a much-needed, and much-anticipated, break. Classes are canceled, calendars are less cluttered, and the roller coaster offers an opportunity to breathe.

I love the academic calendar. For someone who simultaneously craves routine and can’t stand monotony, the academic calendar provides the perfect blend of predictability and variety. I love the summer of planning and anticipation, the flurry of the fall semester, the joy of the holiday breaks, and the spring semester sprint toward the finish line of commencement.

But I especially need a break right now.

One year ago, while the power was out in Malibu post-fire, I set aside the breathing mask and trusted my laptop battery in the dark of my office for a job interview. Life has not slowed down for a minute since.

I am so excited that our daughters are visiting our new Nashville home this week, and you’ll surely hear more about that later. But this morning, I am headed to the office with a smile. I don’t need a break to rest. Instead, I simply need time away from the frenzy of meetings and events, with time and space to think, to process, to clear the old mind so that I can dream again.

I give thanks for that today, three days ahead of schedule.

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In a Seattle Coffee Shop

Posted on February 25, 2019 | Leave a comment

IMG_3395I sit sipping cocoa in a Seattle coffee shop and let the world slow down. It is a busy shop but not frantic, filled with locals in their regular weekend rhythms, not a selfie-seeking tourist in sight. I only know to be there because they called my daughter in for work, so I am an interloper with a free pass for the morning. I am honored.

It is cold outside. I could be exploring but am dizzy from the past few months of life and revel in the opportunity to sit still in the warmth of someone else’s community with an interesting book and a hot chocolate. I read for hours and suspect I could go all day.

I sit alone. And not. There are other solo customers, most with laptops, and one with an old-fashioned page-turning book like me. Parents occasionally bring their toddlers in and gather in the play area in the back. A few couples are there for conversation. It is a good crew, and I am proud of us. They are mine if only for the morning.

The hours float by like an ever-present Seattle rain cloud, and the time comes for me to step back on the moving sidewalk of life. I don’t mind. I have work to do. But I cherish this extraordinary morning.

I like many things about the fast-paced life. It is the life for me. But I love how from time to time the adventurous pace leads me to quiet places like this lovely Seattle coffee shop.

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That Inward Eye

Posted on May 7, 2018 | Leave a comment

Picasso SolitudeI will head to the Idaho-Washington border tomorrow to spend a few days alone on a personal retreat—heaven for an introvert and a planner. Serving a church family that follows an academic calendar makes this the perfect time for such a thing. There is time to breathe and work to do, and there are dreams to dream and plans to develop. I am ready for all of this and more.

Solitude is an excellent work space and a good planning partner. There is something magical about standing at attention, all alone, listening for still, small whispers transported on air. I cannot wait.

I recall Wordsworth’s vivid description from over two centuries ago of a solitary cloud floating over thousands of golden daffodils and then an inner state of being that he can access so that his happy heart dances among those spectacular flowers. That’s what I’m talking about. That’s what I love about solitude.

I Wandered Lonely as a Cloud – by William Wordsworth

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

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As I Sit Writing

Posted on April 30, 2018 | 4 comments

William-Faulkner-quote

It is kind of cool to say that I read Jesmyn Ward before reading William Faulkner, but as a former Mississippian it felt wrong never to have read Faulkner so I purchased As I Lay Dying and devoured it while strapped to an airplane on a recent business trip. Faulkner is a legend, of course, especially so in Mississippi what with his Nobel and multiple Pulitzers and all.

As I Lay Dying is probably Faulkner’s runner-up to The Sound and the Fury for his best-known novel and is most assuredly a depressing story. The pitiful Bundren family’s sad series of misadventures attempting to bury the family matriarch is, well, pity-full, but instead of proceeding straight to therapy upon completing the book I found myself reflecting on Faulkner’s style.

If you remember (and/or care), Faulkner used fifteen different narrators for fifty-nine tiny chapters and a stream of consciousness literary technique that shared the disparate thoughts passing through the minds of his grieving characters. As he did, I found myself noticing and relating to their obvious loneliness, their feelings of detachment from everyone else. Each was so very alone. Alone with his or her thoughts.

I surely get how that feels.

There are many odd things about me, but the one I will share today boys and girls is that for some undetermined reason in my loneliness I regularly write down my inner monologue and share it with the world at large. That is odd, best I can tell. Most people learn to keep their thoughts to themselves, but I presumably was absent that day.

Maybe it is my own meager attempt to defeat loneliness. Or maybe loneliness has liberated me so that I am unafraid to share my inner thoughts.  Or maybe I am just weird. All are valid options.

Regardless, it is what I do, for what it is worth. Welcome to my world. Pull up a chair and stay awhile if you have nothing better to do.

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A Personal Spiritual Retreat

Posted on July 24, 2017 | 3 comments

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I’m the sort of person who doesn’t mind going to a movie alone.  That’s weird I know, but then again so am I.  All of the voices inside my head get along pretty well most of the time so the occasional time alone is positive more often than not.

My new preaching gig graciously allows me to attend some sort of conference each year, but since nothing particularly appealing fit into my calendar and since I never really had a chance to reflect prior to jumping from one job into another, I opted for a personal spiritual retreat this year—retreating today and returning on Friday.  I suspect that I will talk to a person or two along the way at a restaurant or convenience store, but the plan is to spend time alone in silence.  Listening to the sound of stillness.  Meandering on a couple of scenic runs.  Praying and meditating.  Reflecting and planning. Dreaming.  Preparing my mind, heart, and soul for a new year (as our church family marks time) that is rapidly approaching.

Utah is my chosen destination, partly because I have never been, partly because it is far enough away and yet not so far either, and partly because of a landmark there that may or may not have something to tell me about the sermon series I intend to deliver in the fall.  We’ll find out soon enough.

We are all different.  For some, such a week ahead may sound like torture, but I am almost giddy with excitement.  Who knows what might emerge when I get away from routines and responsibilities, meetings and appointments, emails and notifications long enough and far enough to take a deep breath and truly listen?

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The Secrets of a Sacred Space

Posted on July 21, 2017 | Leave a comment

Stauffer“Let the site tell you its secrets.” — Christopher Alexander

I joke that my propensity to arrive early for absolutely everything is a sickness, but in reality it is a treasured quality since it reminds me of mom and dad.  Being early is my heritage.  With age, it seems that I am less impressed with my unique qualities and particularly value those characteristics that connect me to a larger story.

I arrive very early for work on Sunday mornings to prepare for our church’s collective time together, a couple of hours early in fact—and love it.  We decided to meet in stunning Stauffer Chapel this summer thanks to a brilliant suggestion from my friend, Sara, and the setting has made the early morning solitude particularly delightful.

I like the strange sensation of opening the door to discover that no one else is there and being the first to step inside.  I like turning on the lights and straightening the hymnals and removing the leftover trash from the pew racks.  I like arranging the podium and communion table just right and reviewing the sermon, imagining the congregation at breakfast preparing to join with me and with others.  I like propping open the doors and hearing the gurgling fountain outside and then returning to the deafening quiet inside and the intense feeling of anticipation. I like to notice the sun pierce through the massive stained glass spraying psychedelic graffiti all over the quiet sanctuary.

Famed architect, Christopher Alexander, argued that users of a space know more about their needs than the architect and wrote, “Let the site tell you its secrets.”  In my sacred Sunday solitude, I don’t seem to be able to articulate my needs, but it sure seems that the space has secrets to tell.  I listen each week and can almost hear them.  Maybe if I listen long enough?

In reality, I’m not sure that sacred spaces have actual secrets to tell.  But maybe the wonder that is found in showing up early to listen is secret enough.

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All by Myself

Posted on May 12, 2017 | 1 comment

18380808_1524829434235903_6230348940479299584_n(1)“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.” – Paul Tillich

Our kids are grown, and my wife was out of town for the past week.  You do the math.  The house sure was empty.  I read a lot and for some diagnosable reason made the bed each morning and carried on with life’s responsibilities, but since television isn’t my thing and I rarely listen to music, other than the weird times when I carried on a conversation with myself, it sure was quiet around the house.  As they say, too quiet.

I think everyone would agree that loneliness is a terrible thing, but as Tillich noted, the English language makes room for an optimistic approach to time alone and calls it solitude.

Wendell Berry described solitude as the place where “we lose loneliness,” which is just a delightful thought.  He claims it a space where your “inner voices become audible” (tell me about it) and you sense “the attraction of one’s most intimate sources.”  It is a time and place where you reconnect with the inner you.

I don’t always like the inner me, but he deserves notice from time to time, and given the noisiness of this party called life it takes a little work to find the space.  Or your kids grow up and your wife takes a business trip.

When my dad died in 1994, I worried that my mom would be lost every day.  Turned out I was wrong.  When I spoke with her about it, she said, “I’ll be sad from time to time, but I’m not going to let myself be sad all the time.”  And for the eighteen years she had left on this planet, she was right.

Berry concluded that one emerges from solitude more useful to others: “The more coherent one becomes within oneself as a creature, the more fully one enters into the communion of all creatures.”¹

In solitude, I reflected on solitude and concluded that it deserves incorporation into the rhythm of life.  But I’m sure happy to have my wife home again.

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¹ Wendell Berry, “What Are People For?: Essays” 11 (Counterpoint, 1990).

 

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A Place to Let Go (for the November in Your Soul)

Posted on October 30, 2015 | Leave a comment

The origin of the phrase “blowing off steam” is no mystery, and anyone with firsthand experience of the real thing knows that it is best not be in the neighborhood when it happens. Regardless, we all need an outlet from time to time, and although I am a big fan of the annual vacation, it seems that humanity needs a way and a place to release some pent-up emotions a little more often than once a year.

If you do not have said way and place, make it a priority.

As an encouragement, recall this famed passage from Melville’s classic, Moby Dick:

Call me Ishmael. Some years ago—never mind how long precisely—having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth, whenever it is damp, drizzly November in my soul, whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet, and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people’s hats off—then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.¹

Where is your sea?

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¹ Garrison Keillor, Good Poems 284 (2002).

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