Posted on by Kurt Bodling

be faithful to solitude

“It is not your job, however, to fix anyone else with your solitude. It is only up to you to be faithful to it when you need it, rather than feel there is something wrong with you for it. You are not alone in wanting to be alone sometimes.”

Aron, Elaine. Four Words: Downtime, Solitude, Silence, and Loneliness. Originally published in Comfort Zone Newsletter: November 2012. Read online at https://hsperson.com/four-words-downtime-solitude-silence-and-loneliness/ on 2 March 2024.

A psychologist of highly sensitive persons – she literally wrote the book on them – says to remember to take some time alone (and goes on to quote Merton as “our solitude expert”).

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

public prayers

“Social and public prayers hold groups and religions together, but they do not necessarily transform people at any deep level. In fact, group certitude and solidarity often becomes a substitute for any real journey of our own. Hear this clearly. I am not saying there is no place for public prayer, but we do need to heed Jesus’ very clear warnings about it.”

Rohr, Richard. The Naked Now: Learning to See as the Mystics See. New York: Crossroad Publishing, 2009, pp. 72-3

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saints as family and in the mirror

“This is our family in the spiritual order, the family of saints. And we also are saints. You may not think of yourself as exactly a saint, but if you are a sincere seeker after wholeness, then you belong to this community. I’m sure that not all the Romans and Corinthians Paul addressed as ‘saints’ were paragons of virtue, but it was their vocation, and is ours, to strive to fulfill Jesus’ command to love him by loving one another. We should believe in ourselves as saints. If we celebrate November 1 as All Saints’ Day, we should claim it and enjoy it as our feast day. If we recite the Apostles’ Creed, we should turn our attention seriously to believing in ‘the communion of the saints’ and asking what that means.”

Bruteau, Beatrice. Radical Optimism: Practical Spirituality in an Uncertain World. Boulder, CO: Sentient Publications, 2002, p. 104

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hermit monks

“There exists a long tradition of Benedictine hermits back to the time of Benedict himself. It is admittedly a good solution but it affects only a few individuals. These have the advantage of a solitary life and of freedom to develop according to their own needs and personal vocation. They have a minimum of concern about temporalities, and they are able to continue their monastic life as members of the community where they made profession. Normally, however, monks have neither the desire nor the grace to live this particular kind of life, and the real problems remain to be solved in the context of common living.”

Merton, Thomas. “The Monastic Renewal: Problems and Prospects.” (1966) in Selected Essays. Edited with an introduction by Patrick F. O’Connell. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 2013, p. 390

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solitude and community

“Christianity has never promoted an individualistic ‘me and Jesus’ spirituality. Such thinking is an anomaly and an aberration. Even as early as the fourth century, when hermits started retreating into the desert to live solitary lives in radical devotion to God, the Christian tradition remained consistently adamant: love, charity and hospitality are absolutely essential, expected and required. As one desert hermit taught, the charity shown to a sick brother is worth more than a lifetime of penitential practices.”

Haase, Albert. Coming Home to Your True Self: Leaving the Emptiness of False Attractions. Foreword by M. Robert Mulholland, Jr. Downers Grove, IL: IVP Books, 2008, p. 25

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

silence in relationships

"The silence of listening is a form of attention, a gift of self to the other, and a mark of moral generosity. It should manifest an awareness of our humility so as to agree to receive from another person a gift God is giving us. For the other person is always a treasure and a precious gift that God offers to help us grow in humility, humanity, and nobility.

“I think that the most defective human relationship is precisely one in which the silence of attention is absent.”

Sarah, Robert Cardinal with Nicolas Diat. The Power of Silence Against the Dictatorship of Noise. Translated by Michael J. Miller. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2017, p. 81.

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a quiet silence

“In order to listen, it is necessary to keep quiet. I do not mean merely a sort of constraint to be physically silent and not to interrupt what someone is saying, but rather an interior silence, in other words, a silence that not only is directed toward receiving the other person’s words but also reflects a heart overflowing with a humble love, capable of attention, friendly welcome and voluntary self denial, and strong with the awareness of our poverty.”

Sarah, Robert Cardinal with Nicolas Diat. The Power of Silence Against the Dictatorship of Noise. Translated by Michael J. Miller. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2017, p. 81.

Posted on by Kurt Bodling

pilgrims remember and love

“Pilgrimage in that moment seemed less to me like exteriorized mysticism and more a rite of remembrance. The world would have us forget what is painful. It would have us move on and be free of the past; but both as individuals and societies, we have our loyalties to what we have known and endured. Pilgrimage gave us the illusion of a forward movement across space, even as it allowed an inner journey toward communion with our past. It was a crystallization of the poet Joseph Brodsky’s idea that “if there is any substitute for love, it’s memory.””

Taseer, Aatish Ali. A Pilgrimage Year. New York Times Style Magazine. 9 November 2023. <viewed online 12 November 2023 at https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/11/09/t-magazine/travel-bolivia-mongolia-iraq.html&gt;

In pilgrimage our bodies move forward, and our hearts move inward or outward at the same time. I think he’s saying here that our love for God and the saints (however defined) moves us to want to be where they were (are?) so that we can ‘commune with our past’.

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poverty and contemplation

“It is true, however, that a certain degree of economic security is morally necessary to provide a minimum of stability without which a life of prayer can hardly be learned. But ‘a certain degree of economic security’ does not mean comfort, the satisfaction of every bodily and psychological need, and a high standard of living. The contemplative needs to be properly fed, clothed and housed. But he also needs to share something of the hardships of the poor.”

Merton, Thomas. New Seeds of Contemplation. Introduction by Sue Monk Kidd. New York: New Directions Books, 2007, ©1961, p. 251

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small groups in congregations

“Ideally every Christian should belong to a group that is small enough for individuals to get to know one another, care for and particularly to pray in meaningful depth for one another, and also to a fellowship large enough to contain a wide variety in its membership, its styles of worship and its kingdom-activity. The smaller the local community, the more important it is to be powerfully linked to a larger unit. The larger the regular gathering (I think of those churches where several hundred, or even several thousand, meet together every week), the more important it is for each member to belong also to a smaller group. Ideally, groups of a dozen or so will meet to pray, study scripture and build one another up in the faith.”

Wright, Tom. Simply Christian. London: SPCK, 2006, p. 181

Comment: Bishop Wright makes his case for small groups in the congregation, but without invoking either psychology, or sociology, or Jesus and the Twelve. It is built on a network of supportive relationships within the group. Good for most people in most places, I guess, to belong both to a small group and to a larger fellowship.