People often ask, “So what do you do?”. And the answer is, “Well, not a lot!”.

I have been thinking about the idea of being “productive”. It has become a virtue. Like “conforming”, the other modern virtue, it concerns objectivity. My value as an individual is measured by what I can objectively produce.

But this “producing” has little to do with life. Productivity is not about subsistence but surplus. Objectification makes me an object that can be defined and valued. Productivity makes me a means to an end for someone else.

So maybe the solitary life is about not being an object and not being productive. It is about a relationship with the Other that cannot be measured and is not judged by what it does. It is about a life that says, “I love you and expect nothing in return” – I love you for Love’s sake.

Anyway …

²² The same night he got up and took his two wives, his two maids, and his eleven children, and crossed the ford of the Jabbok. ²³ He took them and sent them across the stream, and likewise everything that he had. ²⁴ Jacob was left alone; and a man wrestled with him until daybreak. ²⁵ When the man saw that he did not prevail against Jacob, he struck him on the hip socket; and Jacob’s hip was put out of joint as he wrestled with him. ²⁶ Then he said, ‘Let me go, for the day is breaking.’ But Jacob said, ‘I will not let you go, unless you bless me.’ ²⁷ So he said to him, ‘What is your name?’ And he said, ‘Jacob.’ ²⁸ Then the man said, ‘You shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, for you have striven with God and with humans, and have prevailed.’ ²⁹ Then Jacob asked him, ‘Please tell me your name.’ But he said, ‘Why is it that you ask my name?’ And there he blessed him. ³⁰ So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, ‘For I have seen God face to face, and yet my life is preserved.’ ³¹ The sun rose upon him as he passed Penuel, limping because of his hip. ³² Therefore to this day the Israelites do not eat the thigh muscle that is on the hip socket, because he struck Jacob on the hip socket at the thigh muscle.

Genesis 32

So just some random thoughts:

• Jacob is alone before … Maybe Jacob has to be alone to wrestle with God? Sometimes we need to be alone with God.
• God changes Jacob’s name to Israel to indicate a vocation “for you have striven with God”. In baptism, God gives us a name (and a vocation), we just need to listen for it.
• God blesses Israel after they wrestle.

I really like this passage as an illustration of the solitary life. Being alone for Jesus. Being called by name. Being blessed. (And, maybe, being a blessing.)

I have been thinking about the various words that describe solitary life. So I looked up solitude. And it has this to say about the positive effects of being alone:

Freedom is considered to be one of the benefits of solitude; the constraints of others will not have any effect on a person who is spending time in solitude, therefore giving the person more latitude in their actions. With increased freedom, a person’s choices are less likely to be affected by exchanges with others.

That sounds like a description of the monastic enclosure and of solitude in a religious sense. In the end, it is all about freedom.

This morning I was thinking about silence. In particular, how the modern mind sees silence in terms of what I do. It is easy to see solitude and silence in a mechanical way: the absence of people and noise. But, in the spiritual sense, one can be in solitude and still have contact with people: “less likely to be affected by exchanges with others”.

The end of both solitude and silence is greater freedom to be with Jesus. They are a means to an end, not an end in themselves.