The older I get, the more comfortable I am being alone. That feeling is probably a common one because the increasing maturity of years leads to deeper self-knowledge and a confidence in our identity.
We depend less on the opinion of others, need less outside affirmation, and grow in our relationship with the Lord as the center of our life.
I was pondering all of this last week when I drove alone out East to visit relatives and friends in Virginia and North Carolina.
Hours of being alone in the car led to reflection, prayer, peace, and perspective. We all need time by ourselves. Despite our astounding abilities to communicate, we live in a culture that is very disconnected, fractured, and lonely.
We can share words, messages, videos, and images, but the vast majority of such seems profoundly superficial and inauthentic.
Our society is so frenetic, loud, distracted, and busy, that we often fear silence and resist being alone because we will come face to face with ourselves in the quiet.
We will come to see our sins, failings, fears, and insecurities in their true light when we dare to step out of the social whirl of petty distraction.
We will come to know our poverty when all the noise dies down.
An essential experience
As frightening as this experience can be, it is absolutely essential if we are serious about growing in the spiritual life.
All the saints would point to self-knowledge as a necessary ingredient to discover God as the source of our fulfillment and hope.
We can only come to know ourselves fully in the light of being, in the presence of the Lord, in silence and solitude. Loneliness is being alone and resisting it. Solitude is being alone and embracing it as the beautiful place of encountering God.
I have always been fascinated with the mystery of Jesus’ prayer life. The Scriptures narrate how often the Lord would spend the whole night, off in a deserted place or on a mountaintop, completely absorbed in prayer to the Father.
What happened when the Son of God prayed to His Father? What did He say and feel?
Clearly, Jesus needed to be wrapped in a silent solitude, which gave Him the time and space to simply rest in the heart of the Father.
Prayer was to Jesus what sleep is to us, deeply refreshing and absolutely needed.
Loneliness versus solitude
When I did formation work in the seminary, many young men preparing for the priesthood would share with me their deepest fear about embracing a life of celibacy — their dread of being lonely.
I would speak to them about the things I am sharing in this column — the difference between loneliness and solitude, the need for the Lord to be the center of our lives, including our affective and emotional aspects.
I also shared how I discovered in my parish ministry that many married people seemed more lonely than I was.
Our culture embraces two fallacies. Get married and never be lonely again. Be celibate and always be lonely. Neither one of those is true.
Until I come to realize that only the love of God can satisfy my deepest desires for love, acceptance, intimacy, and meaning, I will always be looking for some relationship, achievement, possession, or experience to fill the God-shaped hole at the center of my heart.
When I have grappled in the dark with my fears, inadequacies, temptations, and sins, and come to the point of surrendering all of my poverty to the Lord, trusting in His unconditional love for me, then I am able to love other people, not from a position of clinging neediness, but from a holy freedom which leaves a sacred space of distance for God to live and act in both of us.
We will always experience moments of loneliness. It is part of the human condition.
We are each individuated selves. We are born alone and we die alone. I uniquely bear both the blessing and the burden of being me. I can be no other.
Freedom comes when we stop running away from ourselves and allow the Lord to love, heal, bless, and forgive us. This unconditional embrace of the Good Shepherd leads us to a peace and joy this world cannot give.
When I am completely immersed in Christ, I can find solace, laughter, and grace in every moment, when I am alone or with others, when I am accepted and understood and when I am rejected or ignored, when I am on the top of the world, and when I am filled with sorrow and grief.
Prayer becomes the sacred place where I both discover God and my deepest self.
Prayer is the precious means by which the Lord transforms our fearfully dark loneliness into a richly joyful solitude.
Do not be afraid of being alone. God is waiting for you there, wanting to give you spiritual treasures which can only be perceived and received in the mystery of solitude.