Solitude is to be sought not because of the relief from those who are not there but for His sake who is
John Henry Newman
Category: SolitaryLife
hell is other people
Shortly before the end of [No Exit], one of the three strangers puts into words that toward which the whole play is turning from its beginning when he says that: “There’s no need for red-hot pokers. Hell is other people.”
“Hell is other people” means thus that it is hell and unbearable to exist subject to, awaiting, controlled by, and turned toward the Other’s approval, judgements, and opinions.
“Hell is other people” describes an existence existing at the mercy of the Other, the Other’s judgements, and the Other’s accusing gaze. It is hell, tormenting, and unbearable to be unable to escape the Other’s look that objectifies and, in its objectifying, tortures.
Explaining Sartre’s “Hell Is Other People”
… as a punishment for criminals
In antiquity as well as in the Middle Ages there was an awareness of this longing for solitude and a respect for what it means; whereas in the constant sociality of our day we shrink from solitude to the point (what a capital epigram!) that no use for it is known other than as a punishment for criminals. But since it is a crime in our day to have spirit, it is indeed quite in order to classify such people, lovers of solitude, with criminals.
Sickness Unto Death
All for Jesus
Whatever the rhythm of prayer may be, by day and by night, solitaries must never lose sight of the fact of Jesus as Saviour; it is he, and only he, who draws us to the Father and who has promised us the ministry of the Spirit. We must never lose sight of the Incarnation and all that flows from it; that is the uniqueness and completeness of the Christian way.
Solitude and Communion: Papers on the Hermit Life, 108
whole in each
The Church of Christ is united in all her parts by the bond of love, so that she is both one in many members and mystically whole in each member. … If those who believe in Christ are one, then wherever an individual member is present, the whole body is also there through the mystery of the sacrament.
Peter Damian, Letter 28 Dominus Vobiscum.
incognito: the hiddenness of the solitary life
For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. (Col 3:3)
The individual does not stop being a human being, take off finitude’s motley in order to be dressed in the abstract garb of the monastery; but nor does he mediate between the absolute τέλος and finitude. In immediacy the individual is rooted in the finite; when resignation has convinced itself that he has acquired the absolute orientation towards the absolute τέλος, … He is a stranger in the world of the finite, but does not define his difference from worldliness by an alien mode of dress (a contradiction, since it would define him as worldly); he is incognito, but his incognito consists precisely in looking just like everyone else.
Kierkegaard: Concluding Unscientific Postscript
the law and the solitary
Whereas Western canon law regarding hermits has been marked until recently by an extreme rigidity, Eastern monasticism is distinguished in this, as in other respects, by flexibility and variety. … Such matters cannot and should not be made the subject of detailed legislation; freedom must be left to the conscience of the individual, guided by the Holy Spirit and by his spiritual father. Canon law should not displace the personal relationship between the abba and his disciple.
Metropolitan Kallistos in Solitude and Communion: Papers on the Hermit Life
public & individual
The performance of the liturgy, which the Orthodox Church sees as the fundamental reason for its existence, is a public event in which the words and gestures of the priest, familiar to all, are repeated before the eyes of the faithful; any variation or deviation can be recognised. The deep spiritual truths of the Faith, on the other hand, were communicated to individuals by spiritual fathers who had prepared themselves through long periods of solitude and prayer.
France, Peter. Hermits: The Insights of Solitude
the desert and the west
Holy Hesycgia: The STillness that knows God
… the heritage of the Desert Fathers had never been fully assimilated by the Western church,
thin places
Through their hidden lives of sacrifice and attentiveness to the Holy, hermits help to create more “thin places” in the world, allowing influences from the spiritual realm to more freely touch human lives.
Consider the Ravens: On Contemporary Hermit Life
this solitary life 