Learn To Be Alone

 

“Learn to be alone,” is the title of a chapter in Thomas Merton’s book, New Seeds of Contemplation.  This is a favorite book of mine.  I find it particularly helpful during certain seasons, like Lent.  However, I also realize being alone is not just a Lenten theme.  It is a theme for all seasons in our lives.  For if we never choose to be alone, I would guess we really do not know ourselves.  We will only know ourselves in relation to others and to other things. This is not bad; it is just inadequate.

         Early in that chapter Merton asks a penetrating question.  “How can people act and speak as if solitude were a matter of no importance in the interior life?” (80)  His answer is instructive.  He says, “Only those who have never experienced real solitude can glibly declare that it ‘makes no difference’ and that only solitude of the heart really matters.” It seems obvious that Merton differentiates two kinds of solitude: real solitude and solitude of the heart.  Let’s explore both of these.

         Real solitude is easy enough to understand.  Real solitude means you are alone…physically and from any other form of connection.  Real solitude does not include being by yourself, but with cell phone and email.  Real solitude means for a period of time you are inaccessible to other humans.  It is that time alone…with yourself and, if God shows up, with God.  For that is a major reason for learning to be alone.  This offers a tried and true way of coming into contact with the Divinity.

         And there is the other kind of solitude, what Merton calls the “solitude of the heart.”  This solitude is tricky because it sounds so spiritual!  But we recognize it would be easy to be in the midst of a crowd, or even with just one other person, and say rather smugly, “oh, I was able for a period of time to be alone in the solitude of my heart.”  This could mean many different things.  It could simply mean that I was with another person, but I was pre-occupied with my own stuff.  I would hardly call that “solitude of heart.”  And the list goes on.  I know that if I am not literally alone, then I can trick myself that I have anything remotely like “solitude of heart.” 

         Merton is talking about very basic steps. For example, he says that “There should be at least a room, or some corner where no one will find you and disturb you or notice you.”(81)  This unavailability to others is exactly the point.  As long as I am available to others---and to other things---I am less likely to be available to my deeper soul or to God.  And this is precisely what scares so many in our connected, busy world.  WHAT would we do if we were alone!  Probably this will never be answered without actually being alone. That is the risk of being alone.  But perhaps there is a bigger risk in never being alone!

            One of the functions of learning to be along is to expose our attachments to all that has become routine in life.  Attachments are not bad; in fact, many of them are quite good, maybe even necessary.  Attachments come in the form of family, friends, work, and the list goes on.  But they are not ultimate; they are not God.  To know God usually means we need periodically to detach.  We need to learn to be alone.  Ok, I am going to do it.  For once I cannot say “join me!”