Tag: solitude

LONELINESS IN A FRANTIC WORLD

All beings have a propensity to unite with other beings

without this internal propensity which some call “gravity”

from atoms to galaxies

love would not appear at higher levels –

this propensity to unite, this gravity, is “attraction”

the primordial beginning of love

 

“Love/conviction/service not theology

are the keys to the Great Awakening –

it is not ‘what’ we believe but ‘how’ we believe

what is ‘actionable’ that counts”

– Diana Butler Bass

 

if God made you with this internal propensity to love

and made you intrinsically important to God

why would God change her mind in the next life?

God’s Love is the one eternal thing that takes away

our foundational fear of death/annihilation

 

so we never need to feel alone

God is always with us

but loneliness is not the same as being alone or solitude 

loneliness is a feeling of not being a part of anything/

being cut off from others and life/

being intrinsically unworthy of love/

a feeling of guilt/a taste of death

but Love is stronger than death

 

we can be alone and be happy

if we feel we are still part of a loving family/community –

Church was originally meant to be the Beloved Community

 

but people try to fill the hole in their soul –

their loneliness – with work

but a distinction exists

between sound/healthy/meaningful/life-giving work

and frantic work

done out of loneliness/fear/greed/

our sins/society’s sins

 

Love and our recognition of that Love

are the only answers

to our frantic lives in a frantic society

in a frantic world.

 

ALONE WITH THE ALONE

Buddhist teaching states that even if you are fully enlightened

difficulty and pain are still inevitable – you will experience

aging/illness/death/

sorrow at losing what you love –

youth/health/life

 

you are also going to experience loneliness, a universal feeling –

and when we are not enlightened we naively believe

a sexual relationship will take away our loneliness

but unless there is heart and soul communication

sex just makes us more lonely

 

loneliness is different than solitude –

solitude can correct the tendency of codependents

to look outside themselves for their identity –

solitude provides us with an opportunity

to discover/know/embrace intimacy

with our true self

 

but we have to be careful – to not get sucked in

by our false self – our ego – an illusion because it exists

outside of God’s will/love/reality/life itself

 

still, if we are careful, we will find within

a secret/incommunicable/mystery/sanctuary

which the intrusions of self-assertion and violence

cannot penetrate – but on the other hand

if we are not careful, the ways of the world

can lure us out of our sanctuary

and slay us

 

but souls abandoned to God are protected

from their own ego because they take delight

in nothing but God – normal pursuits/activities

hold no delight – they want to be in solitude

alone with the Alone – the Only One

the Lonely One

who wants only to love and be loved

 

“God has created us for great things:

to love and be loved”

– Mother Teresa

 

 

THE EROTIC UNIVERSE

In early Christianity, theology and prayer

were never divorced. Evagrius of Pontus (345-399 CE):

“The theologian is the one who prays

and the one who prays is a theologian.”

 

Later on, Thomas à Kempis wrote in The Imitation of Christ

“If you look at Creation, the Creator

withdraws his gaze from you.”

So, Christians have had an anti-Creation/

anti-body/anti-sexuality spirituality

which is ironically contrary to the Creation-centered

spirituality of the Bible.

 

But the theory of evolution changed all that –

evolution does not degrade humans

it shows us we are an integral part

of a vast web of earthly relationships.

But science only tells us ‘how’ we got here –

we need religion to tell us ‘why’ we are here – our purpose.

 

The idea of Christian cosmology

is in the Greek Fathers of the Church

particularly Irenaeus, who wrote that, in Christ,

the universe finds its meaning and goal.

 

The Uni-Verse, the One Verse, the One Poem

is thoroughly relational/communal/erotic –

wanting union even at the molecular level –

‘gravity’ is ‘mutual attraction between bodies’ – ‘eroticism’ –

its all part of the love that makes the Universe go round –

to ‘be’ is to ‘be with’ – the ‘we’ always precedes the ‘I’

just as the sexual union of a man and woman precedes children –

no one can say “I did it all on my own”

or “I did it my way – alone.”

 

Mantras are not words that mediate rational meaning –

they are vehicles that carry the spirit to one’s depths

and give us solitude to make us ‘uselessly present’ to God

which connects us to love in our depths

which connects us to others –

solitude is thus the erotic foundation

upon which community is built –

the purpose of life is the same as the purpose

of the Universe – to make love.