Follow-up on Growing as a Hermit: The importance of Others and Learning to Listen

[[Dear Sister, first of all, thank you for your response to my question. Also, thank you for the chance to follow up. What I was interested to hear was how does a hermit with little access to other people measure their [own] growth? Here's where I was coming from in my question. I know that it is in my relationships with others that I really find out whether I have been growing or not. Sometimes I think I've got some hang up taken care of and all of a sudden there's an encounter with someone at my parish and any thought that I have grown in my ability to love others, or my capacity for patience, or whatever --- is shown for the delusion it is! It just seemed to me that a hermit has less chance to have the kinds of experiences that prove whether they have grown or not.

I also wanted to follow up on what you said about letting God be God. I never made the connection before between letting God be God, letting ourselves be loved by God, and loving God ourselves. They really are all the same thing, aren't they? Thank you for that insight!]]

Thanks again for getting back to me. I understand where you are coming from in your observation regarding access to people or relationships. My own experience is, in some ways, the same as yours with regard to seeing how I have grown as a hermit. One source of gauging or measuring growth will be how I deal with other people. Sometimes this has to do with how others still trigger reactions in me, how I get irritated or impatient or judgmental --- all that kind of thing. Sometimes I will notice shifts in relating that are more positive (though I might be noticing how much less irritated or impatient or judgmental I get than I once did, and this represents growth and healing). Yes, there's nothing like relating to others, especially after periods of solitude, to help one see the work that has been done and the work (or conversion, growth, or healing) that still needs to be done!!!

Sister Marietta Fahey, SHF

I do pay attention to the keys these kinds of encounters with others give me, but the source of growth, healing, and conversion will always mainly be my relationship with God. I grow in that relationship and as I do that, I find that it bears fruit in other relationships, in the way in which I see reality around me (for instance, is my realism tinged (or strongly colored) by cynicism or by hope?), and in the way I experience or know myself as well. It also bears fruit in the way I live each day, how I handle illness and chronic pain, how faithful, caring, creative, and courageous I am able to be in spite of limitations, and in all of this, how faithful to prayer.) There are certainly times when all of that is harder (and sometimes very much harder) than at others and I depend on regular meetings with my director to share it all and to maintain perspective and direction. In between meetings for SD, it is journaling, prayer periods, and my time with Scripture that help keep me in touch with who I am called to be and who I am becoming. 

I think what I want you to hear here is the fact that a hermit's life is not ordinarily entirely closed off from others, or from the kind of listening and responding that characterizes relationships with these same others. Eremitical solitude is not isolation, after all!  Also, there are other ways to listen. I know, for instance, that when I stop journaling (or blogging!!) for a period of time something needs special attention. I know something is up when my prayer -- or my approach to prayer -- changes (for instance, I resist prayer or can't return to a normal pattern after a period of illness), or Scripture feels relatively flat to me. Note, however, the changes can also indicate something positive is going on with me and certainly in my relationship with God (and others), so, for instance, the need to add a third period of quiet prayer to the day.)  All of this, and what it all means for being faithful to (growing in) my identity and vocation in Christ depends on a commitment to listening and openness to myself and to God, and so, all of it is implicated in what I refer to as faithfulness to prayer. 

I remember writing here once about Thomas Merton saying that to be really crazy requires other people and that sanity was gained with the trees and mountains (probably a bad paraphrase but it will do for a very limited application). We really have to learn to listen to the content and quality of our own hearts if we are to grow. Moreover, we must learn to hear who God says we are --- how he loves and takes delight in us!! I think that best occurs in the silence of solitude, whether that solitude is about being in touch with ourselves while resting in the heart of God alone, being in touch with ourselves through the abundant life of God's creation, or seeing ourselves anew as we speak our truth to a good friend who generously gives herself over to hearing and accompanying us in this journey toward the fullness of Selfhood. In all of these situations we can hear our own hearts gently reflected back to us if we have learned to listen. That way lies growth, no matter who we are. Sometimes, our encounters with others result in inner turmoil, a kind of cacophony that doesn't serve growth in quite the same way --- if at all!

Thanks again for the follow-up question. I enjoyed pursuing this a bit further than I pursued it originally! And yes, "Letting God be God" etc.,  all mean essentially the same thing!!! Pretty cool, isn't it?

"Happier Hermit" Reflects on Freedom from "Masking"

In January of 2020 I posted an article about Regina Kreger, a lay hermit who unofficially took the name Felicity upon making private vows as a lay hermit. Fittingly, Regina/Felicity has a blog called Being a Happy Hermit, and yesterday she posted an article there entitled "Happier Hermit." It is one of the best posts I have read illustrating what hermits recognize life in a hermitage makes possible, namely, the absence of masking (no, not physical masking due to COVID!) --- where "masking" is something Felicity points out we all do at least from time to time, and especially in certain situations.

 While hermitages are not the only place or situation in which an absence of masking is made possible, their essential nature is defined in terms of this phenomenon. Even the idea of a "stricter separation from the world" is about the absence of masking or the transparency that life in a hermitage makes possible. Thomas Merton referred a number of times to the same experience in eremitical life when he wrote of the lack of pretense, or even the bone deep sanity one finds there. Some readers might remember that he wrote about the impossibility of remaining insane (and here he was speaking about all the forms of pretense and personal dishonesty life ordinarily allows or even demands) in the face of the deep sanity of the forest or desert. I more routinely use the term "transparency" or even humility (a form of loving honesty) to speak of this significant form of sanity. It is an important expression of authentic freedom, namely the freedom to be ourselves and to take the same kind of delight in our own and others' truth that God takes.

Felicity, a fine writer (and authentic hermit it seems to me), illustrates the meaning of all of these terms and descriptions in her post: Happier Hermit. She routinely posts thoughtful and profoundly insightful posts illustrating significant dimensions of eremitical life. For instance, on the occasion of the renewal of her vows this month she posted about why eremitical life is not a stopgap or fallback calling for her in: Solitude. She summarizes this by saying loudly and proudly, "I'm NOT settling!!" I recommend folks give her blog a second and third look (and a first, of course, if you haven't done that yet)!! Meanwhile, my congratulations to Felicity/Regina on the renewal of her vows and best wishes and prayer as her eremitical adventure continues, (soon to be) "somewhere" in Europe instead of Maryland, USA, or even in Spain.

Finding a Constructive Way Forward: An Invitation to Clarify Disputed Points --- with Addendum

  [[I do not make statements for the heck of it or without sound reason and facts, in addition to on-point metaphors. The one/s who try to negate or weigh in on what I share, with their gotcha-intentions, do a disservice to whomever reads their misinformation on this topic in particular. They lead people potentially to think of themselves in deceived ways, which may at some point embarrass themselves to others and blind them and keep themselves from seeking deeper forms of prayer; and thus, hinder themselves from becoming great contemplatives, their minds, hearts, and souls closer to His Real Presence, which is something we all should desire and of which I myself desire very much.]] Excerpt from Blog post  23 March.2022, (Catholic Christian Mystic Hermit blog)

Dear MC [name removed after receipt of email was acknowledged], I think then we are both trying to make well-grounded arguments or well-justified positions (rather than aggressive assertions) without [documented] reasons that can be evaluated by readers. Keeping that in mind I sincerely hope you will supply citations from David Knowles' book (What is Mysticism?) as well as something by Bernard McGinn, perhaps, and other experts to support your positions, especially regarding the following points where we seem to disagree so completely. (cf numbered items below.)  I am asking, in particular, that you provide an actual citation (at least the page numbers and chapter) from Knowles' work where he explains that mystics are born, not made (by God), and, if possible, that you define the term "mystic" as cogently as you can. That would also be genuinely helpful moving forward. 

Also, let me say directly that I think you profoundly misunderstand my positions and my posts on this subject if you believe I have suggested that mystical prayer itself is not a deeper form of contemplative prayer (specifically, mystical prayer = forms of infused contemplation), or that union with God, which is the very heart of mystical prayer, is not something every person is created for and called to even as it is a profound and immediate gift of God's very Self.  Please note that "immediate gift of God's very self" precludes one from believing one can achieve this on their own so I am certainly not misleading people into thinking they can become mystics on their own. 

If you believe that I am saying God can make people into mystics (ordinarily in conjunction with their long dedication to and practice of prayer) then you are correct. I am saying that God can do that, that he wills to do that, and that he does do it today as in other centuries. I sincerely ask that you review all that I have written and see what I have actually said. Especially, you should be aware that I teach that every person is called or invited to the heights/depths of contemplative prayer including even the prayer of union, and I always encourage folks to open themselves to experiencing the heights and depths of prayer they never imagined were open to them. I certainly have no intention of hindering  anyone from becoming great contemplatives and mystics.

The major points on which we apparently disagree are: 

1.  that mystics are born, and perhaps on what a mystic is then. 
2. that mysticism is an affliction (which is not precisely the same as saying it is a great grace that can involve intense suffering) and that it should not be celebrated much less desired, and, 
3. that the term mystical prayer is nonsensical rather than a richly meaningful term, as you asserted in your post of 23. March (cf provided link). 

For my part I have affirmed that:

1. mystics are not born, though every person is created for and called to some significant degree of union with God here in this life as well as after death. The notion that there is some sort of dialogue between God and a pre-existent soul where he asks them if they will be a mystic seems to me to be very bad theology and Christian anthropology both. Fortunately, Emmerich's ideas on this are not part of the Church's own teaching and we are not obliged to affirm them. 
2.  that mysticism is most fundamentally a very great grace, indeed the fulfillment of a life of grace (and so, of prayer) which can occasion intense suffering as well as profound joy and a peace in which even one's sufferings can be lived with real equanimity and even more than equanimity. While I appreciate your clarification of what you meant by calling mysticism (i.e., what a mystic practices) an "affliction", the fact that you claim mystics pray to be normal seems to me to support understanding the term "affliction" in the more questionable sense you are now distancing yourself from. Add to that the fact that you chose to use two actual neurological disorders in your comparison; this leads to the sense that "praying to be normal" doesn't mean simply desiring to be a bit more ordinary. It also seems to me to sever the connection between something being God's doing in our lives (always first of all a grace even if we are unable to perceive it readily) and I still find your comparison inapt. Maybe you simply chose badly and want to retract the comparison?
3. that the term mystical prayer is meaningful and is used by Prof Knowles in the book you yourself recommended the day before yesterday, and of course, by many others throughout the history of the Church and its reflection on "mystical theology".  
4. that certain secondary or accidental qualities (visions, locutions, levitation, reading souls, stigmata, etc., etc.) are not the essence of mysticism or the mystical life, and further that the theology of God as Absolute Mystery (not some reference to mystery cults) is the genuine source of the traditional sense of "mystical prayer", mystical path, and related terms within Roman Catholicism and Christianity more generally. We call prayer mystical precisely because it is caused immediately by and involves the pray-er in an immediate experience of the Absolute Mystery we know as God. Some writers contrast this with ascetical or acquired contemplation, which is about what one does with one's own heart and mind (raising one's heart or mind to God, for instance). I am not sure what your position is on any of this because as far as I am aware, you haven't provided a definition of a mystic.

Please consider this a sincere invitation and feel free to email me with any material you believe will be helpful to me or to readers of this blog in clarifying disputed points or points of misunderstanding. I will be happy to post any substantive response here and give you full credit and my gratitude for taking the time to do so. In the meantime, in the interests of mutual respect and transparency, I am emailing a copy of this invitation and clarification to you directly as well as posting it here. Thanks for your attention.

All my best.

Sister Laurel O'Neal, Er Dio

ADDENDUM:

MC was unable (i.e., she declined) to supply either the definition of mystic she uses, or the location in What is Mysticism? of Dom Knowles' position that mystics are born not made. Disappointing, but not a problem. I was able to glean a couple of things from her responses and blogs which differ from my own and traditional understandings which do not need to be detailed here except to note that she and I are talking about two different realities when we use the word mystic. Maybe more important was the fact that the invitation led to input from other sources which helped clarify David Knowles' position. (Dom Knowles was a British Benedictine Church Historian, so others who know and admire his work have supplied summaries of his positions.) Here is what I learned: 

1. Knowles does not say mystics are born rather than made. Like many, Knowles accepts infused contemplation/mystical prayer is a gift of God, not merely acquired by long work in prayer (though he clearly believes such prayer can dispose one towards receiving this greatest of gifts). It is sui generis and not induced by acts of the will, stands distinct from what is sometimes called "acquired contemplation" because it is infused as a gift of God, and finds its closest approximation in what is called the "prayer of simplicity". But in this Dom Knowles is restating the Carmelite positions of SS. Teresa and John of the Cross. Even so, he is not saying mystics are born.
2. Dom Knowles also considers markers or accidental qualities like visions and locutions, things to which, he contends, psychologists of religion give disproportionate attention, [[to be confined to the initial and immature stages of the mystical way.]] (Here he is speaking of "stages" falling short of full union with God. As he also pointed out however re Teresa of Avila, the saint refers to beginners in prayer as all those whose prayer falls short of complete union with God. In other words, that would include all of us up to and through the prayer of quiet so we should certainly not necessarily take the terms "immature" or "beginner" in common, much less pejorative, senses.) Again, Prof. Knowles seems to be in agreement with St Teresa and the general Carmelite tradition in such things. By the way, Dom Knowles also seems to be in agreement with the contemporary Ruth Burrows (Sister Miriam, OCD) regarding the place of mystical experiences in the life of grace/prayer.
3. The related terms mystical prayer, mystical path, and mystic are profoundly meaningful terms rather than being nonsensical for Knowles, Teresa, John of the Cross, Elizabeth of the Trinity, and the entire Carmelite family even when there are differences in labeling the dimensions of the life of grace/prayer which all find difficult to speak of. 

Just a note: I am working on a post which links this discussion with yesterday's consecration of Ukraine and Russia which Pope Francis requested and the way we observed it at daily liturgy in my parish yesterday. It also ties in profoundly to the role of contemplative prayer and/or the mystical path in achieving peace in our world and draws from my own prayer re the consecration and reading I have been doing about contemplative prayer/mysticism in Thomas Merton. 

For instance, it is absolutely fascinating to me how it is a mystic's infused contemplation takes them out of this world and out of any dependence on self to dependence on God alone precisely so they can live in this world, as a source of peace. The very thing that seems to make mystics/contemplatives stand apart and marks their experiences in prayer as incommunicable and uncommon, recreates and sends them back to "the world" as those who can encounter it as prophetic missionaries of peace and wholeness. It is the same dynamic which stands at the heart of eremitical life's "stricter separation from the world" and something I have been writing about for many years now. As a friend and colleague -- another diocesan hermit -- joyfully affirmed when, among other things, we spoke about Elizabeth of the Trinity, contemplation, and eremitical life, last week, [[It is all about encounter!!]] So, more about this in a bit (I hope!).

Moving Back into "the World"?

[[Sister did you ever think that by "taking on" Bible study you were turning away from your vocation. The Bible tells us that we shouldn't look back after putting our hand to the plow! Aren't you moving back into the world God called you to leave?]]

Thanks for your email. The question regarding whether anything new I take on is a form of flight or escape from some dimension of my vocation or a way of living it inauthentically always comes up in discernment, so yes, I certainly considered these questions. I sense in your second question a dichotomous view of reality I don't share. I don't believe we can treat the hermitage as one reality and "the world" as reality outside the hermitage. As I have written here before, if we do this, we will soon discover, perhaps to our great shock, that upon closing the hermitage door we have shut ourselves in with "the world" that lives and is deeply lodged within our hearts, minds, and limbs. In a post I put up recently Thomas Merton describes this as merely having isolated oneself "with a tribe of devils." The "world" hermits and monastics turn from when they accept the call to seek God in silence and solitude is the world of "that which is resistant to Christ." It is the world which believes in values which are illusory --- values which promise fulfillment but which leave us empty and hungry for that which is lasting and completes us.

Remember that not everything outside the hermitage is "the world" in this sense. In fact, since God is present within the whole world making all of it at least potentially sacramental, and since God can be found in the ordinary things of the world around us, we identify "the world" the hermit (or monastic) "flees" with all of that only at our peril. But I have written about this before so I invite you to check out other articles on the term "the world" or "stricter separation from the world". Some will refer to Thomas Merton's reflections on "the world" the danger of hypostasizing this term. Merton stresses that we need to learn to see everything in God, that is, we must learn to see everything in its truest sense. "The world" is a kind of illusory seeing which prevents our doing this. Freeing ourselves of this illusory (and sometimes delusional) perspective while learning to see everything as God sees is what monastics and eremites do to as part of "leaving the world." A commitment to the life of God on behalf of the other is another part of "leaving the world", physical separation in the silence of solitude and prayer is another part. All of these are true especially for a hermit living in eremitical silence and solitude.

My own work with regard to Scripture study, at least so far, is proving to be a significant and concrete expression of this commitment. It does not detract from but rather is an expression of it which paradoxically calls me to live my eremitical life with even greater fidelity, imagination, energy, and love. So, yes, my life of solitude gives me something concrete (as well as many things which are less tangible) to share with my parish/diocese just as the small time I am giving to them strengthens my own eremitical life both in returning me again and again to Scripture and in allowing me encounters with people I will carry in my heart back into the solitude. God is alive and very active in all of this and it is in this way I move forward to live more deeply perhaps, the eremitical life God has called me to. You see, I think this means I am moving into the world God has called me to love and I am doing that precisely as a hermit who has and does embrace "stricter separation from the world" in ways which help me to grow in the silence of solitude (the very goal of eremitical solitude and silence).

A Contemplative Moment: Solitude is not Separation

 

Solitude is Not Separation

by

Thomas Merton

  

Some (persons) have become hermits with the thought that sanctity could only be attained by escape from other (persons). But the only justification for a life of deliberate solitude is the conviction that it will help you to love not only God but other (people). If you go into the desert merely to get away from people you dislike, you will find neither peace nor solitude; you will only isolate yourself with a tribe of devils.

 

Man seeks unity because he is the image of the One God. Unity implies solitude, and hence the need to be physically alone. But unity and solitude are not metaphysical isolation. He who isolates himself in order to enjoy a kind of independence in his egotistic and external self does not find unity at all, for he disintegrates into a multiplicity  of conflicting passions and finally ends in confusion and total unreality. Solitude is not and can never be a narcissistic dialogue of the ego with itself. Such self-contemplation is a futile attempt to establish the finite self as infinite, to make it permanently independent of all other beings. And this is madness. Note, however that it is not a madness peculiar to solitaries --- it is much more common to those who try to assert their own unique excellence by dominating others. this is the more usual sin.

 

. . .True solitude is the home of the person, false solitude the refuge of the individualist. The person is constituted by a uniquely subsisting capacity to love --- by a radical ability to care for all beings made by God and loved by Him. Such a capacity is destroyed by the loss of perspective. . . Go into the desert not to escape other (people) but in order to find them in God.

 

. . .There is no true solitude except interior solitude. And interior solitude is not possible for anyone who does not accept (her) right place in relation to other(s). There is no true peace possible for the (one) who still imagines that some accident of talent or grace or virtue segregates (her) from other(s) and places (her) above them. Solitude is not separation. God does not give us graces or talents or virtues for ourselves alone. We are members one of another and everything that is given to one member is given for the whole body. I do not wash my feet to make them more beautiful than my face.

[I write a lot here about the difference between solitude and isolation, eremitism and individualism, and these are a couple of the things I am asked about most frequently --- especially as folks discern the distinction between being a hermit and being a lone or solitary individual -- no matter how pious. Similar questions are posed on the idea of eremitical hiddenness and the distinction between that and anonymity and disengagement. Thomas Merton speaks to all of these ideas. He wrote about Solitude in Seeds of Contemplation but in New Seeds of Contemplation he wrote a new essay called "Solitude is not Separation". The differences between the two are striking; while complementary essays, they show such incredible shifts and development in his understanding and experience of eremitical solitude! The above post consists of excerpts from that second essay.]

On Apostolic Ministry vs the Ministry of Hermits

Dear Sister Laurel, Today's society is one of action, which is how practically everyone, religious included seem to live.  If one is quiet or humble, it's generally looked down on.  What are your thoughts about this?

Good question! First off, I don’t think quietness and humility per se are the problem. What I mean is if one is a contemplative religious or hermit it is not quietness or humility which are problematical in a world which esteems active ministry. All religious life, active, or contemplative, --- indeed all Christian life --- value quietness (silence, stillness, self-control, etc.) and genuine humility (a loving self honesty), but there is no doubt our church generally esteems active ministry and what is called Apostolic religious life while it fails to truly esteem adequately contemplative life and especially eremitical life. I say this although the Church still writes contemporary documents honoring contemplative life; namely, in  spite of these and the fulsome praise of eremitical life given by Bp Remi de Roo in his intervention at Vatican II, for instance, it is still possible to find bishops and dioceses who/that will not give the implementation of canon 603 a chance, and who fail to demonstrate any genuine understanding of the eremitical vocation's charism or pneumatic gift-quality.

What I believe is that unless the church is truly able to see these things (forms of life and their charisms) as powerful and effective ways of proclaiming the Gospel, I don’t think this will change. Our world is in terrible need of hearing the Gospel proclaimed in every possible key and yet all too often contemplative life is seen as ineffective or even selfish. In a world marked and marred by individualism, eremitical life strikes people as a symptom and even the epitome of a cultural epidemic of alienation, selfishness, and self-centeredness. Once again people have to see these things (contemplative and eremitical life) as being powerful ways of witnessing to and proclaiming the generosity, self-emptying, grace, promise, and hope of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

For instance,  while I agree hermits should be persons of assiduous prayer, I don’t think the idea of being powerhouses of prayer, for instance, ordinarily serves as much more than a thinly veiled form of active ministry; it is not the way to achieve the goal just mentioned. On the other hand, witnessing to the salvific love of God that heals, sanctifies, completes, and perfects a person even when the person seems otherwise to have no specific gifts, ministries, or "use" in the community is a particularly vivid witness to the power of the Gospel. Until contemplative religious and hermits do this and make sure the Church understands what contemplative and by extension, eremitical life are really all about I think we will continue to have problems with a failure to esteem such lives.

At the same time, this difficulty in esteeming contemplative and/or eremitical life is not only the hierarchy's problem --- or not their problem alone. Would-be candidates presenting themselves to chanceries and petitioning to be admitted to profession and consecration under canon 603, for instance, frequently are every bit as selfish, self-centered, alienated, and so forth as bishops and vicars or vocation personnel fear! They quite often are social and professional failures who are looking for a way to validate that failure while at the same time they retreat from its consequences into a "hermitage". They might well, for example, have bought into the culture's new fad called "cocooning" and now be seeking a way to give it a bit of religious and even ecclesial standing and prestige. They might have been found unsuitable during a trial of religious life, perhaps even after several tries of different communities and merely be looking for a way to get permission to wear a habit. Some have been unable to cut the apron strings and still live with parents. And so forth.

In relatively rare instances some of these people may discover they actually do have a vocation to eremitical or contemplative religious life which they will need to grow into; dioceses will need to carefully discern and pay attention to the eremitical formation of such persons. These kinds of experiences will demonstrate the redemptive character of eremitical life and the Gospel of Jesus Christ, so again, I believe they bring us back to my first conclusion, namely, it is only insofar as the Church is able to see that eremitical life witnesses to the effective and redemptive power of the Gospel that she will truly be able to come to esteem it appropriately. After all, if one cannot see the power of the Gospel at work in the person supposedly "called" to an ecclesial vocation how can one consider it any valid kind of call by Christ in the his Church?

Quietness and humility can be effective signs of the redemptive power of Jesus Christ and the Gospel. In fact, when they are healthy and genuine, they tend to be the consequence of being profoundly loved and authentic individuality and independence. Noisiness, arrogance, etc are just the opposite. What c 603 calls "the silence of solitude" is about much more than external silence of course. Eremitical life begins there and finds that a source of life, but at the same time the silence of solitude points to the inner quiet that results when we discover how profoundly and unceasing loved we are by God; it is the quiet that comes when we let go of all the various forms of drivenness and insecurity that make our lives a noisy, clamorous seeking. The silence of solitude is the result of being held securely by God and learning to rest in that in ever greater union with Him.

Thus both stillness (quies or hesychasm) and genuine humility are the result of the love we come to know in external silence. Hermits witness to this, and to the radical hope human beings need to live truly human lives at all. In a time when belief in God is often seen as silly or unintelligent, hermits live fully human lives and grow in that in a solitude which is defined in terms of communion with God. As I have quoted here a number of times. Thomas Merton wrote the one gift the (monastic) hermit gives to the world is: to “bear witness to the fact that certain basic claims about solitude and peace are in fact true, [for] in doing this, [they] will restore people’s confidence first in their own humanity and beyond that in God’s grace.”

On Merton, Suffering, Solitude, and the Making of the Hermit

[[The contemplation of the Christian solitary is the awareness of the divine mercy transforming and elevating his own emptiness and turning it into the presence of perfect love, perfect fullness.]] [Merton's ideal solitaries] are thus, [[the paradoxical, tormented solitaries for whom there is no real place; men and women who have not so much chosen solitude as been chosen by it. And these have not generally found their way into the desert either through simplicity or through innocence. Theirs is the solitude that is reached the hard way, through bitter suffering and disillusionment.]]

[[Dear Sister, I have wondered for some time what makes a person want to be a hermit. It just never made sense to me unless the person was broken and embittered by life and needed to withdraw from that by giving up on people and even on God. It's the solitude that I can't justify. Community made sense but not solitude unless hermits were people who were unable to participate in community for some reason. When you have written about the creation of the hermit heart in your own life it sounds like it involved a lot of suffering but you don't come across as bitter or broken. Thomas Merton has written about this very thing (please see what I quoted from "The Hermitary" site); have you seen this already? But I wondered what makes your heart a hermit heart and not the heart of an embittered survivor of suffering. Is the answer in what Merton wrote about mercy?

Do you think Merton is correct in characterizing the "ideal solitary" as he does? If this is true it must be really difficult for dioceses to "discern" this kind of vocation. Do you know what I mean? In religious life candidates are screened for their health and wholeness and backgrounds involving suffering raises red flags for the vocation personnel. But if ideal hermits are "tormented solitaries" what does a diocese look for in determining authentic eremitical vocations?]]

Thank you for your observations and questions. I have written recently again, though briefly,  about fraudulent hermits; what you are asking about is really one of the more significant ways people betray the eremitical vocation or substitute an inauthentic version of the life for the real thing. What Merton was saying first of all, as I read him, is that solitude must open the door to the one wishing to live an eremitical life; one cannot simply decide to live solitude and do it without such an opening. The second thing I believe Merton is writing about is how the door of solitude is often opened to a person. One of the main ways is through suffering that isolates in any of the many ways this occurs. But I agree with you that suffering is not sufficient to truly discern an eremitical call; it is a beginning and might be suggestive but it is not definitive.

On Unredeemed Suffering and the Door to Solitude:

Moreover, if a person has nothing but her suffering and if that suffering  remains unredeemed or un-transfigured by the grace and love of God, she will never be a hermit in the proper (Christian) sense; instead she will remain an isolated, broken, and possibly embittered person but one who is largely, if not entirely incapable of proclaiming the Gospel with her life. Such a person ought not be admitted to profession as a canonical hermit because while she may "not have a place" --- one element of Merton's description --- neither can she live out the mission or charism of the canonical hermit. Genuine solitude is redeemed and transformed isolation. It is marked or characterized by its relational tenor, a unique but very significant and paradoxical form of relatedness, of ecclesiality and community. The place the hermit has is unusual but very real. The door solitude opens to us is unlocked in part by significant and long-term suffering a person experiences through the first half of her life, but at the same time the door of Solitude can only said to be opened if the person has come to know the potential healing and transformation of her woundedness by the unqualified love and eternal life of God.

While persons whose first half of life may be marked by significant suffering are sometimes important and illustrative of the way some eremitical vocations are born, as you say they are sometimes also difficult cases in regard to discernment by dioceses. This is especially true if suffering remains the defining dimension of the person's life.  When I began this blog more than a decade ago I wrote about one needing to be a hermit in some essential sense before one approached a diocese with a request to be professed. What I meant then and still hold is that one has to move from being an isolated person for whom physical solitude may merely mirror or even exacerbate the alienation that can come from and be a source of suffering to being one for whom solitude is a relational reality which heals isolation and is the context for real reconciliation. Hermits know more than physical solitude; they know communion -- with God and others. And this means they can (and in fact must) know the healing of whatever suffering marked their earlier years. When dioceses work with potential candidates for profession they must look for those persons for whom physical solitude is a unique form of communion and symptom and source of healing.

My Own Healing and Growth Work:

In my own inner work I have become even more convinced of this truth.  Both of the quotations you cited are important but in regard to becoming the hermit I am called and consecrated to be I especially resonate with the first one. [[The contemplation of the Christian solitary is the awareness of the Divine mercy transforming and elevating [her] own emptiness and turning it into the presence of perfect love, perfect fullness.]] This is the one which mirrors my profession motto, [[(God's) power is made perfect in weakness]] --- a motto I chose precisely because it reflects first the nature of the Christ Event and then my own story with and in light of the grace of God. My own story involves suffering, yes, but far more than that it is the story of God's grace, a grace which, as I have said here many times, brings light out of darkness, life out of death, and meaning out of senselessness and absurdity. What Merton says, what Paul says, what the Christ Event makes real in space and time, and what authentic hermits of all sorts also say is that suffering plunges a person into the depths of isolation and readies her to hear God's invitation to depend on God alone. When, and to the extent that invitation is accepted one's life is entirely transfigured into one of wholeness and holiness, one is defined in a new way. Suffering may not ease entirely and may even increase in some ways, but it will no longer be the thing which drives and defines the person.

 And this means, of course, that one whose defining experience is the mercy of God will show this to those discerning her vocation. The one who wishes to become a diocesan hermit will reveal the mercy of God as the ground and source of her suffering's redemption and her life's transfiguration. Without this her solitude will be nothing more than physical and maybe spiritual, and emotional isolation. She will be a lone individual --- her suffering will have made her this on a number of levels, but she will not be a hermit in the sense the Church uses the term. On the other hand those individuals who have made the journey that Merton describes, the journey through serious suffering and into the mercy and love of God, may well have discovered the eremitical world solitude herself (and only "Solitude" herself) admits them to.

Summary: A Note to Dioceses on the Charism of Diocesan Eremitical Life

To reiterate then, Dioceses which are careful in their discernment will not eschew a person whose life is full of suffering so long as that life is also one defined and clearly transformed by the grace of God experienced in eremitical solitude. Such a diocese is careful to look not only at the suffering but at the fruits of that suffering which would  demonstrate it has been transfigured by the mercy of God. When the latter is not clearly present, when for instance, the person's message is self-centered and full of expressed pain but little else, when, that is, her life is defined by her suffering and not by the grace of God, the diocese will have to wait and watch to see what kind of vocation is actually present. They will give the person some reasonable time in physical solitude to see what changes occur. Generally speaking, if the person is called to be a hermit, isolation and a focus on suffering will be transformed by the love of God into genuine solitude (a unique but very real expression of reconciliation and community in Christ)  and the proclamation with her entire life of the healing and redemptive love of God.

Also generally speaking, all of this reflects the way the heart of a hermit is created and the door to eremitical solitude is opened when there is a background or history of significant suffering. It reflects the way a life comes to reveal the charisma or gift to Church and World c 603 calls "the Silence of Solitude" in such cases.  Suffering of all sorts can hollow one out and make one yearn for answers to the question of self that only God can provide. One lives the questions associated with meaning: does my life make sense? Is it meaningful? Is it moved by love, both as giver and receiver? How can I make sure my life is meaningful by ministering to others in a way which is redemptive for them?  Why have or am I suffering in the apparently gratuitous way I have or am? Where is God in all of this and how can I live for God and others? As important as living the questions is, through the grace of God mediated to one in all the ways it comes to us, one will also come to live the answer: namely, I have lived/am living all of this so that the Gospel of God in Jesus Christ is proclaimed loudly and clearly (or silently but with clarity and poignancy!) and the God whose power is perfectly revealed in weakness resonates within my heart causing it to sing a Magnificat of gratitude and praise.

Driven into the Desert by the Spirit of Sonship (Reprise)

I really love today's Gospel, especially at the beginning of Lent. The thing that strikes me most about it is that Jesus' 40 days in the desert are days spent coming to terms with and consolidating the identity which has just been announced and brought to be in him. (When God speaks, the things he says become events, momentous things that really happen in space and time, and so too with the announcement that Jesus is his beloved Son in whom he is well-pleased.) Subsequently, Jesus is driven into the desert by the Spirit of love, the Spirit of Sonship, to explore that identity, to allow it to define him in space and time more and more exhaustively, to allow it to become the whole of who he is. One of the purposes of Lent is to provide the "space" and time  needed to  allow us to do the same.

A Sister friend I go to coffee with on Sundays remarked on the way from Mass that she had had a conversation with her spiritual director this last week where he noted that perhaps Jesus' post-baptismal time in the desert was a time for him to savor the experience he had had at his baptism. It was a wonderful comment that took my own sense of this passage in a new and deeper direction. Because of the struggle involved in the passage I had never thought to use the word savor in the same context, but as my friend rightly pointed out, the two often go together in our spiritual lives. They certainly do so in hermitages! My own director had asked me to do something similar when we met this last week by suggesting I consider going back to all those pivotal moments of my life which have brought me to the silence of solitude as the vocation and gift of my life. Essentially she was asking me not only to consider these intellectually (though she was doing that too) but to savor them anew and in this savoring to come to an even greater consolidation of my identity in God and as diocesan hermit.

Hermitages are places which reprise the same experience of consolidation and integration of our identity in God. They are deserts in which we come not only to learn who we are in terms of God alone, but to allow that to define our entire existence really and concretely -- in what we value, how we behave, in the choices we make, and those with whom we identify, etc. In the "In Good Faith" podcast I did a few years ago for A Nun's Life, I noted that for me the choice which is fundamental to all of Lent and all of the spiritual life, "Choose Life, not death" is the choice between accepting and living my life according to the way God defines me or according to the way the "world" defines me. It means that no matter how poor, inadequate, ill, and so forth I also am, I choose to make God's announcement that in Christ  I am his beloved daughter in whom he is well-pleased the central truth of my life which colors and grounds everything else. Learning to live from that definition (and so, from the one who announces it) is the task of the hermit; the hermitage is the place to which the Spirit of love and Sonship*** drive us so that we can savor the truth of this incomprehensible mystery even as we struggle to allow it to become the whole of who we are.

But hermitages are, of course, not the only places which reprise these dynamics. Each of us has been baptized, and in each of our baptisms what was announced to us was the fact that we were now God's adopted beloved daughters and sons. Lent gives us the space and time where we can focus on the truth of this, claim that truth more whole-heartedly, and, as Thomas Merton once said, "get rid of any impersonation that has followed us" to the [desert]. We need to take time to identify and struggle with the falsenesses within us, but also to accept and appreciate the more profound truth of who we are and who we are called to become in savoring our experiences of God's love. As we fast in various ways, we must be sure to also taste and smell as completely as we can the nourishing Word of God's love for us. After all, the act of savoring is the truest counterpart of fasting for the Christian. The Word we are called to savor is the Word which defines us as valued and valuable in ways the world cannot imagine and nourishes us where the things of the world cannot. It is this Word we are called both to struggle with and to savor during these 40 days, just as Jesus himself did.

Thus, as I fast this Lent (in whatever ways that means), I am going to remember to allow myself not only to get in touch with my own deepest hungers and the hungers I share with all others (another very good reason to fast), but also to get in touch anew with the ways I have been fed and nourished throughout my life --- the experiences I need to savor as well. Perhaps then when Lent comes to an end I will be better able to claim and celebrate the one I am in God. My prayer is that each of us is able to do something similar with our own time in the desert.

_______________________________
Merton quotation taken from Contemplation in a World of Action, "Christian Solitude," p 244.

*** A reminder that whether we are daughters or sons of God, our adoption by God gives us a share in Jesus' Sonship. Our own daughterhood or sonship is derivative in nature; that is, it derives from  Jesus' Sonship. Thus I speak of the Spirit of Sonship, not because I am insensitive to the issues of patriarchy or inclusive language, but because my usage here is essentially and primarily Christological.

Developing the Heart of a Hermit

[[Hi Sister, when you write about having the heart of a hermit and moving from isolation to solitude do you mean that someone comes to this through some form of trauma or serious personal wounding and alienation? Is this necessary? Can a person who has never been hurt or broken develop the "heart of a hermit"?]]

Hi and thanks for your questions. When I think of someone with the heart of a hermit I am thinking of someone who has entered a desert, been stripped and emptied in all the ways a desert does, and learned to depend upon God for her very life as well as for the meaning of that life. When I speak of God I mean what the Christian creeds mean, what the NT means and who Jesus reveals, but I also mean being dependent on the One Tillich called the "Ground of Being and Meaning", namely a transcendent ground which both surpasses and comprehends our own emptiness and incapacities and is the source and guarantor of life and meaning.

When I speak of a desert I mean the literal wilder-nesses we know as deserts (the Thebaid, Scetes, Mojave, Sonoran, Sahara, etc), but I also mean any extended situation which demands  or forces a person to plumb the depths of their own personal resources --- courage, intelligence, creativity, sense of security, personal  gifts and talents, sense of self, faith, hope, love, etc --- all the things we need to negotiate the world fruitfully and independently. In such a situation, which may certainly include childhood traumatic situations, a person brings all they have and know to the situation and over time are emptied or reach the limit of these resources. At the same time one can, and hopefully will, experience a sense of empowerment one knows comes from beyond themselves, sometimes radically so. When this happens such a person continues to live with a fresh courage and sense of meaning and hope. They embrace their own weakness honestly as they humbly and gratefully accept the life which is received as complete gift in such situations.

All kinds of situations result in "desert experiences." Chronic illness, bereavement, negligent and abusive family life, bullying, losses of employment and residence, abandonment, divorce, war, imprisonment, insecure identity (orphans, etc), serious poverty, and many others may be classified this way. Typically such experiences distance, separate, and even alienate us from others (e.g., ties with civil society, our normal circle of friends and the rhythms of life we are so used to are disrupted and sometimes lost entirely); too they throw us back upon other resources, and eventually require experiences of transcendence --- the discovery of or tapping into new and greater resources which bring us beyond the place of radical emptiness and  helplessness to one of consolation and communion. The ultimate (and only ultimately sufficient) source of transcendence is God and it is the experience of this originating and sustaining One who is Love in Act that transforms our isolation into the communion we know as solitude.

Thus, my tendency is to answer your question about the possibility of developing the heart of a hermit without experiences of loss, trauma, or brokenness in the negative. These experiences open us to the Transcendent and, in some unique ways, are necessary for this. Remember that sinfulness itself is an experience of estrangement and brokenness so this too would qualify if one underwent a period of formation where one met one's own sinfulness in a sufficiently radical way. Remember too that the hermit vocation is generally seen as a "second half of life" vocation; the need that one experiences this crucial combination of radical brokenness and similar transcendence and healing is very likely part of the reason behind this bit of common wisdom.

In any case, the heart of a hermit is created when a person living a desert experience also learns to open themselves to God and to live in dependence on God in a more or less solitary context. One need not become a hermit to have the heart of a hermit and not all those with such hearts become hermits in a formal, much less a canonical way. In the book Journeys into Emptiness (cf.,illustration above), the Zen Buddhist Master Dogen, Roman Catholic Monk Thomas Merton, and Depth Psychologist Carl Jung all developed such hearts. Only one lived as a hermit --- though both Dogen and Merton were monks.

As I understand and use the term these are the hearts of persons irrevocably marked by the experience and threat of emptiness as well as by the healing (or relative wholeness) achieved in solitary experiences of transcendence and who are now not only loving individuals but are persons who are comfortable and  (often immensely) creative in solitude. They are persons who have experienced in a radical way and even can be said to have "become" the question of meaning and found in the Transcendent the only Answer which truly completes and transforms them. In a Farewell to Arms, Hemingway said it this way, [[The World breaks everyone and then some become strong in the broken places.]] The Apostle Paul said it this way (when applied to human beings generally), "My grace is sufficient for you, my power is perfected in weakness."

Hermit hearts are created when, in a radical experience of weakness, need, yearning, and even profound doubt that will mark her for the rest of her life,  she is also transfigured by an experience of God's abiding presence. A recognition of the nature of the hermit's heart is what drives my insistence that the Silence of Solitude is the goal and gift (charism) of eremitical life; it is also the basis for the claim that there must be an experience of redemption at the heart of the discernment, profession, and consecration of any canonical hermit. While she in no way denies the importance of others who can and do mediate this same presence in our world, the hermit gives herself to the One who alone can make her whole and holy. She seeks and seeks to witness to the One who has already "found" her in the wilderness and found her in a way that reveals the truth that "God alone is enough" for us.

A Contemplative Moment: on Contemplation and Detachment

True contemplation is the work of a love that transcends all satisfaction and all experience to rest in the night of pure and naked faith. This faith brings us close to God that it may be said to touch and grasp Him as He is, though in darkness. And the effect of that contact is often a deep peace that overflows into the lower faculties of the soul and thus constitutes an "experience." Yet that experience or feeling of peace always remains an accident of contemplation, so that the absence of this "sense" does not mean that our contact with God has ceased.

To become attached to the "experience" of peace is to threaten the true and essential and vital union of our soul with God above sense and experience in the darkness of a pure and perfect love.

And so, although this sense of peace may be a sign that we are united to God it is still only a sign --- an accident. The substance of the union may be had without any such sense, and sometimes when we have no feeling of peace or of God's presence He is more truly present to us than he has ever been before. If we attach too much importance to these acccidentals we will run the risk of losing what is essential, which is the perfect acceptance of God's will, whatever our feelings happen to be.

But if I think the most important thing in life is a feeling of interior peace I will be all the more disturbed when I notice I do not have it. And sense I cannot directly produce the feeling in myself whenever I want to, the disturbance will increase with the failure of my efforts. Finally I will lose my patience by refusing to accept this situation which I cannot control and so I will lose the one important reality, union with the will of God, without which true peace is completely impossible.

Seeds of Contemplation by Thomas Merton

A Contemplative Moment: On Distractions

Prayer and Love are learned in the hour when prayer has become impossible and your heart has turned to stone.

If you have never had any distractions you don't know how to pray. For the secret of prayer is a hunger for God and for the vision of God, a hunger that lies far deeper than the level of language or affection. And a [person] whose memory and imagination are persecuting [her] with a crowd of useless or even evil thoughts and images may sometimes be forced to pray far better in the depths of [her] murdered heart, than one whose mind is swimming with clear concepts and brilliant purposes and easy acts of love.

. . . But in all these things it is the will to pray that is the essence of prayer, and the desire to find God and to see Him and to love Him is the one thing that matters. If you have desired to know Him and love Him you have already done what was expected of you, and it is much better to desire God without being able to think clearly of Him, than to have marvelous thoughts about Him without desiring to enter into union with His will.

"Distractions" Seeds of Contemplation

by Thomas Merton, OSCO



A Little on Witnessing to a Love that Does Justice in the Face of Tyranny

 [[Dear Sister, I am new to your blog and I haven't explored it very much. I am surprised to find a hermit writing about current events. Do you really not hate ISIS? I think I do. I think I shouldn't but I can't control what I feel when people kidnap and threaten to burn children alive! But here are my real questions. From other articles it seems that your vocation is pretty new and not very well known. I know we don't have any Canon 603 hermits in our parish or diocese. How many of you are there in the US? Do Canon 603 hermits exist in other countries as well? Are there many of them? Do you mind if I ask other dumb questions before I read much of your blog?]]

Welcome to Stillsong Hermitage's blog then. To be honest, I don't write very much about current events but I was asked to write about the situation in Syria and I was very moved by the murder of the 21 Egyptian Coptic Christians. That this occurred just as we were preparing for Lent and the ritual of being marked with the sign of the cross in ashes made things immensely more weighty in my own mind and heart. Add to that the fact that I was just beginning to read the Scriptures with eyes more newly sensitized to the place of honor-shame in Middle Eastern cultures and to see many of Jesus' encounters with family, religious leaders, and so forth as violations of honor, occasions leading to dishonor and shame for some, and you can see why these stories had a special poignancy for me.

You see I have recently come to understand freshly the difference between what guilt-sin-individualist cultures like ours and honor-shame-collectivist cultures like those of the Middle East perceive as honorable. Consciences in these two types of society are formed in vastly different ways from one another. It is not necessarily that consciences have been turned off, as a friend recently commented to me, but rather that they are formed very differently, namely as an instance of group conscience according to what the group determines to be honorable or dishonorable. In light of this I came to see even more clearly how Jesus could be crucified or the cross could be a symbol of the most abject dishonor/shame an individual could know. I have also recently been freshly sensitized to the epidemic quality of shame in our Western culure and to how extraordinarily thin in number and depth have been the reflections of systematic theologians on this aspect of the Gospel and Cross of Christ despite the fact that exegetes regularly remind us that the Gospel writers focus on not the physical pain Jesus experienced but the shame associated with his crucifixion.

These and other threads came together for me recently within a short period of time and all of them were and are critically important. We have either lost or never had an adequate sense of how very counter cultural Jesus and the Kingdom he proclaimed were and are. If we are to begin to understand ISIS and to deal with them adequately we must recover and/or cultivate this awareness. If we are to love our enemies as well as our brothers and sisters in the faith, we must understand this. I suppose it is particularly ironic that a very small piece of this reflection on current events in light of Jesus' Kingdom message and behavior comes from a diocesan hermit living a relatively hidden and certainly silent and contemplative life. But this really is the role of contemplatives and hermits in the Church. Living in silence at the center of existence makes this possible and sometimes, anyway, even imperative. I am reminded of something Thomas Merton once wrote:

I make monastic [eremitical] silence a protest against the lies of politicians, propagandists, and agitators, and, when I speak, it is to deny my faith and my Church can ever seriously be aligned with these forces of injustice and destruction. But it is true, nevertheless, that the faith in which I believe is also invoked by many who believe in war, believe in racial injustices, and believe in self-righteous and lying forms of tyranny. My life must, then, be a protest against these also and perhaps against these most of all.

Of course, in the situation with ISIS the self-righteous and lying forms of tyranny are not those of the Church nor of Islam. But they are those of religion more generally. It is against just this kind of tyranny that Jesus stood, and against which we should stand in our own lives today. This is the reason theologians often distinguish religion from faith. Faith does not allow us to hate. Often it calls us to be weak and lacking in control but still it empowers us to love. This is so because it is rooted in trust in God's love and the power of that love to create justice. So, ordinarily my own protest is carried out in silence and prayer. Martyrdom, witness, takes many forms. When so many threads some together as happened recently, it may be time to speak.

Numbers of Canon 603 Hermits in the US and Elsewhere:

As for your "real" questions. . . numerically the diocesan hermit vocation is quite rare. While there have always been hermits --- especially in the Eastern Church (their course has been more variable in the Western Church, sometimes dying out altogether) --- diocesan hermits only came to be a possibility in 1983 with the publication of the Revised Code of Canon Law. The model and original impetus for the establishment of this new form of consecrated/religious life was a group of about a dozen hermits who had once lived solemn vows as monks in community; when they discerned a call to solitude they each had to leave their monasteries and solemn vows and become secularized; this was because there was no provision in their own congregation's proper law for solitary life, nor was there any provision in canon law --- the more universal law of the Church. Eventually they came under the protection of Bishop Remi de Roo who came to see the significance of their vocation. Bishop Remi then made an intervention at Vatican II sincerely pleading with the Church Fathers to recognize the eremitical life as a way of perfection. Nothing happened at Vatican II but the plans for a revision of Canon Law were initiated and these eventually included Canon 603 which provides for solitary consecrated hermits in universal law for the very first time.

In the US there are about 80 diocesan hermits, perhaps a small number more or fewer. The Vatican has begun to include numbers of c 603 hermits in their statistics on religious and consecrated life but I don't think any have yet been published. In some countries there are none at all. I have a friend in New Zealand who is a diocesan hermit; she is the only one there. In other countries, France and Italy, for instance, there are more than in the US but the number is still relatively small. Because canon 603 is part of a universal Code of Canon Law binding on the Universal Church, not just a single diocese here or there (as was once the case with hermits or anchorites in Europe, for instance), there are now diocesan hermits all over the world. As you can see though, relatively speaking diocesan hermits are an infinitesimally small percentage within the Universal Church.

Finally, please don't worry about questions being "dumb". I have asked in the past for folks to pose whatever questions they have. A few people do that and some even ask questions on an infrequent but more or less regular basis. They are all very helpful to me. For instance in a post I put up earlier I was able to answer a question about the meaning of the term "institutes". It never occurred to me that word could be a source of misunderstanding for someone reading canon 603 ("Besides institutes of consecrated life, the Church recognizes the eremitic or anchoritic life. . .") but it was a really great question because it made something clear to me I had not known. I think all questions can do that but quite often it is the most obvious ones that don't get asked and could be most instructive for readers, and for myself as well! So while I do encourage you to read posts linked to the labels on the right of this blog, please know all questions are more than welcome.

Centenary of Merton's Birthday

I have certainly written here before that Thomas Merton played a big role in my becoming a hermit. It was his work Contemplation in a World of Action that first convinced me eremitical life was a living (vital) form of life and his essay, “Notes for a Philosophy of Solitude” in Disputed Questions convinced me how truly contemporary this life is. It is probably Merton’s own interest in the Camaldolese that put them on my radar screen at all; I hadn't thought much about that connection before. (It was ironic though that when my diocese's Vicar for Religious wanted to understand what was necessary for an individual to live a healthy eremitical life she and another Sister travelled hours to New Camaldoli to speak with the Prior there. I only learned of that years later --- and after I had made my oblature with the Camaldolese.)

Throughout my own life as a Catholic (I was baptized the Summer after High School graduation) I have returned again and again to Merton's writings always finding greater depth and wisdom. As a former Franciscan I am now (far too slowly!!) reading Daniel Horan's, The Franciscan Heart of Thomas Merton and once again Merton's life is a gift to me as it allows me to explore and to some extent reclaim my own Franciscanism within the Camaldolese charism which defines my life and diocesan eremitism in so many ways.

I am always surprised at those who say Merton was not the real deal! Was he flawed? Of course (and in ways which led to one pretty serious misstep which could be said to have harmed another)! But Thomas Merton's life is the gift that keeps on giving! Several friends in monastic and eremitical life say very similar things about his influence in their lives and vocations. I am so very glad to celebrate this anniversary of his birth. My only regret is that I was never able to meet him face to face. Happy Birthday Tom --- you are certainly celebrating the gift of life as fully as possible!

Questions On "Craziness", Solitude, and the Possibility of Healing

[[Hi Sister, in a question you answered for Nun's Life Ministry you said that though healing could happen in solitude you thought it best that someone needing healing mainly have that taken care of before trying to live as a hermit. But you have also quoted Thomas Merton where he says that a person cannot be truly crazy in solitude since real craziness requires other people and solitude can bring one to drop pretensions. It sounds to me like these two positions are in conflict. Why should a person have their healing "well in hand" before trying to live as a hermit? Do you agree with Merton as much as you seemed to when you quoted him?]]

Thanks for the questions. You've been doing some back reading it looks like. So, let me explain what I said in the three part Q and A Sister Julie initiated. It is true that healing can certainly be accomplished in solitude. In fact, for the personal healing sometimes necessary, especially that associated with bereavement and grieving, solitude can be a powerful context and catalyst for healing. In The Values of Solitude, John Barbour notes that healing is one of five major reasons people seek solitude and, in some cases anyway,  may live in extended physical solitude. But what is also true about solitude, and especially about eremitical or more absolute solitude which is a silent solitude, is that it breaks down and does so before it builds up.

Ordinarily, with temporary or transitional periods of solitude this is relatively gentle and limited, not least because it is "controlled" by the prospect of leaving the silence of solitude. But with eremitical or more absolute and permanent forms of solitude the absence of this same prospect actually intensifies the effect of physical solitude. The consoling and edifying power of solitude and its related silence may not be experienced sufficiently to offset this or to establish the full dialectic of solitude. If one is psychologically fragile or actually ill the results can be destructive. Moreover, even if one is entirely healthy, if one does not have a mature and balanced spiritual life which is focused on and allows for the metanoia of the whole self, such solitude can open one to the more destructive portions of one's own psyche. Thus, I believe that a person needs to have their own healing well in hand before choosing to live as a hermit.

You see,  if one does not proceed in this way a couple of things can happen: First, because the "tearing down" that happens in eremitical solitude is more intense and extensive than in occasional solitude,  it may morph into psychological decompensation.  One simply may not have the psychological health to defend oneself sufficiently, much less live without defenses, in this new and relatively alien context. When this happens, because one is alone one may not really appreciate the degree of decompensation occurring. This is especially true when psychological symptoms are covered by naive readings of traditional eremitical stories and justified with simplistic notions of spirituality which are themselves unhealthy or unbalanced and destructive in isolation. Secondly, one may actually be tempted to turn in a naive way to traditional stories about early hermits and stereotypical notions of the eremitical life to justify and/or deny the decompensation.

Merton's Comments on "Real Craziness"

My sense is that Merton's references to "craziness" and "real craziness" is not so much to mental illness per se, but to the "craziness" associated with a culture which is individualistic, geared to competition, social climbing, consumerism, and the constant need to do rather than be --- among so many other "dysfunctions" of our society. These ensure the development of the false self, a concept we also largely owe to Merton, and that kind of spiritual schizophrenia is the epitome of "craziness" for a monastic.

The pressure for all of these comes from other people and our tendency to measure ourselves accordingly. In this context Merton's comments about craziness needing other people and how real craziness cannot be sustained in the face of the sanity of trees and mountains make perfect sense and I agree completely. If we interpret his meaning to refer to actual diagnosable mental illness as found in the DSM V then his comments make less perfect sense. For instance, in some forms of mental illness isolation (physical solitude) will exacerbate the illness whereas significant contact with others will mitigate it. Merton's comments would be mistaken in such cases. That said, I can't be sure what Merton's intention actually was; I don't know of another place he spoke in the same way and clarified his terminology.

Followup on the Prayer Lives of Hermits

Dear Sister Laurel, I wanted to thank you for what you wrote about the prayer lives of hermits. As someone trying to become a lay hermit and write my own Rule I found your recent post on this very helpful. I have also been led to look at what you have written about "stricter separation from the world" by your comments on using pious practices to cover over what is really worldliness: 

[[One journals and talks with her director to see if she might be using one form of prayer to avoid something else --- that profound listening that requires one be in touch with her deepest heart, for instance, or monastic leisure and letting go of the need to "produce" or do rather than be. These latter difficulties are or can be reflections of the worldliness that follows us into the hermitage so we must not simply slap a pious practice over it and think we have "left the world" or begun to truly pray as a hermit in so doing. (It is the case that even certain practices in prayer, certain affectations or attachments may be more worldly than not.)]]

I have always thought that any prayer is a way of combating worldliness but I guess in the contemplative life that really may not be so. Can you please say more about this? Thank you.]]

Yes, when I wrote that I was thinking of, several things. First, and most incidentally or tangentially, there was a phrase I personally hate, namely that of "prayer warrior." So let me dispense with this piece of things before moving on to my more central concerns. Often I have seen the all-too-human desires for control, power, or fear translated into prayer-as-weapon. The idea of storming heaven with our prayers causes me to cringe because when you scratch the pious veneer off of the practice there is an idea of controlling God, getting God to take notice, a desire to recruit God to "our" side of some belligerence, etc. This is all very far removed from the contemplative prayer of hermits or a love that makes whole, for instance, and while I believe we all ought to lend our hearts and minds in support of the concerns and needs of our brothers and sisters (which is what intercessory prayer allows), I don't think any genuine prayer can be about getting God's attention (which does not mean we should not pour out our profound sense of need!!), attempting to control God, convincing God with our needs, bargaining, etc. I do think that this tendency in our prayer can be considered a form of worldliness and needs to be relinquished or otherwise outgrown.

The same is true of the second issue I had in mind, namely, treating prayer as a busy-making, productive activity in a world which is all about doing, making, producing and never enough about truly being, much less being truly ourselves and resting in God! If prayer is conceived of as a pious undertaking of our own doing, even if it involves pleading on behalf of others, we may well simply be perpetuating a very worldly pattern of self-assertion and the inability or even outright refusal to listen. I think it is essential to pour out our hearts to God, that is, to open every concern to Him and allow him to touch, hallow, and make that same heart one. Likewise I believe that in pouring out our hearts we mediate God's love to those we carry in those same hearts. Even so, we can do this in silence trusting that God will find his way into all of the nooks and crannies of our hearts, that he will move us to pour ourselves out to him, and that generally all we can provide (which we still do by God's grace) is our permission in what is really God's own work and movement. To treat prayer otherwise may be to perpetuate a worldliness that resists such utter dependence, is allergic to silence, and seeks to make prayer a work we succeed (or at least attempt to succeed) at ourselves.

A third thing I was thinking of when I made that comment was the tendency I sometimes see in those who would be hermits. Too often isolation and eccentricity are "baptized" by these folks with the title "hermit." Instead of working on the personal changes that need to be made so that one may overcome continuing occasions of alienation and rejection, these are "consecrated" with the notion that God desires these things or even that he causes or accomplishes them in one's life. But individualism, avoidance of conversion, and self-justification are pretty worldly attitudes and behaviors and to affirm that God desires (or even causes) their exacerbation rather than their healing and redemption in the name of mysticism, eremitism, or a "victim soul spirituality" is to slap a pious label on something which is worldly in the most destructive way. Self-described hermits may really be more about this kind of worldliness than they are about eremitical solitude --- which is being alone with God for the sake of others. It is ironic that the eremitical life as the Church understands it is NOT a good solution (much less vocation!) for those who refuse to be related to others. Because eremitical solitude is partly about loving others IN God (it is first of all about dwelling in God for God's own sake), isolation and a failure to love in concrete ways are actually antithetical to eremitical solitude.

Finally, I was thinking of those who pretend to be mystics or contemplatives. This can happen for many reasons but whether it occurs because this is thought to be a "higher" form of prayer, or because it allows them to opt out of the demanding commission given to every Christian to help build the Kingdom and participate in some integral way in the Body of Christ, it is worldly. If it occurs because it saves them from the everyday toil of maturing spiritually (humanly) or  learning to pray and to allow God to work in and with one, or because pseudo-mystical experiences are distracting from the pain of loss, rejection, alienation, illness, etc, or simply because they make the person feel special and loved (which, when authentic, of course these can and do, but in a way which produces incredible  fruit for others) --- these (inauthentic experiences) too are simply entirely worldly ways of living over which pious labels or activities have been plastered. Especially in contemplative life (and particularly when this is marked by mystical prayer) one must learn to really pray, learn to genuinely and wholly give oneself over to God in true humility. During this process one will experience tedium, boredom, a sense that one is getting nowhere in prayer, etc. In such instances to go back to an earlier form of prayer which was exciting or fulfilling in an attempt to avoid the difficulties of the present stage of growth is another version of a worldliness which eschews dependence on God, powerlessness, darkness or a lack of understanding and control, and certainly boredom or tedium of any sort.

It is simply all-too-easy to carry over attitudes and ways of approaching reality which are indeed worldly into our prayer -- and to do so in ways which are meant to protect these. Attempts to impress, to show only our best selves, to stand on our own merits, to succeed, to speak eloquently (when we ought to listen) or not at all (when we are called to speak up!), to create a prayer-as-achievement or settle for prayer experiences rather than to be a prayer, to be distracted from pain or to embrace an irresponsible quietism, to justify a refusal to be well (or to work toward wellness) by choosing isolation in the name of victimhood  or eremitical life, to mask anger and bitterness (especially at God!) under a layer of the language and thought of pseudo mystical misery and a distorted theology of suffering --- all of these and many more can be ways of what I described as trying to [[slap a pious practice over [something which is really worldly] and think we have "left the world" or begun to truly pray as a hermit in so doing.]] 

As I have written before, one of the really critical mistakes beginning hermits make is to believe they leave "the world" simply by shutting the door of their hermitage on everything outside it.  That simply makes of the hermitage a particularly dishonest (or deluded) outpost of the world one is seeking to redeem. But to really leave "the world" behind means to leave those attitudes and behaviors which are so much a part of the way we have been acculturated to think, perceive, and judge while we allow our hearts and minds to be entirely remade by God. When this happens, the hermitage becomes what one friend reminded me it should be, namely, a place where the cries and anguish of the world are truly heard --- and, I would add, where they are taken up into the very heart of God through the hermit's heart at prayer.

As a kind of postscript, please remember a couple of the things Merton says about "the world" and the danger of hypostasizing it. I have cited these before: "The way to find the real 'world' is not merely to measure and observe what is outside us, but to discover our own inner ground. For that is where the world is, first of all: in my deepest self.. . . This 'ground', this 'world' where I am mysteriously present at once to my own self and to the freedoms of all other men, is not a visible, objective and determined structure with fixed laws and demands. It is a living and self-creating mystery of which I am myself a part, to which I am myself my own unique door. When I find the world in my own ground, it is impossible for me to be alienated by it. . ." (The Inner Ground of Love)

"There remains a profound wisdom in the traditional Christian approach to the world as an object of choice. But we have to admit that the mechanical and habitual compulsions of a certain limited type of Christian thought have falsified the true value-perspective in which the world can be discovered and chosen as it is. To treat the world merely as an agglomeration of material goods and objects outside ourselves, and to reject these goods and objects in order to seek others which are "interior" or "spiritual" is in fact to miss the whole point of the challenging confrontation of the world and Christ. Do we really choose between the world and Christ as between two conflicting realities absolutely opposed? Or do we choose Christ by choosing the world as it really is in him, that is to say, redeemed by him, and encountered in the ground of our own personal freedom and love?" (The Inner Ground of Love, Emphasis added)