What I needed was the solitude to expand in breadth and depth and to be simplified out under the gaze of God more or less the way a plant spreads out its leaves in the sun.And that is what I need, what I yearn for, too - solitude.
~ Thomas Merton
Yet, while I enjoy time apart, I know for me solitude is also about a way of being, a way of inhabiting the very moments of my days. It's being intentional in thought and in deed. It's paying attention and connecting what is within with what is with out. It's living the truth that all of life is sacred and seeking to connect, as often as possible in as many ways as possible, with the sacred in this moment.
In that I know myself to expand in breadth by touching our connectedness, and in depth by touching the Holy within, and find that all of living and being becomes simplified to the grace of Love under the gaze of God. Solitude is simply a return to the center.
Yet this is not to deny that I need time alone, time apart to re-collect, to re-connect with my own center. For it is only through my center that I can truly connect with others and with God.
Solitude, that is, time apart by its very nature is part of the cycle of Sabbath rest. Essential for a life fully lived, yet one thread of the fabric of our existence.
Solitude, as time apart, provides me a place to, once again, re-connect the various parts of myself into the center of who I am. It allows me to, once again, see and name as whole that which society sees as, treats as, demands as parts. For in this time all of me is laid bare to myself. The illusions of the world fall away, and in my vulnerability I find the acceptance of God's mercy and grace once again.
Perhaps in the end it simply amounts to becoming aware, to being totally present in this moment, to being ready to listen. It is all given. It is all waiting. It is available to us all the time.
~ Esther de Waal
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