What could you try for the first time?
I could try online grocery shopping—and I did yesterday! So, I do not need to leave The Anchorage (enclosure) at all this week. I have used an online store for books, but this is my first food order.
This week, I am aiming for solitude and silence—a new year, a new start. Perhaps that is what I am really trying for the first time: be a recluse without excuses.
Today is my second anniversary in The Anchorage. Much has changed, and much has stayed the same. I thought that the opening song from Spongebob Squarepants is an appropriate thing to share today.
I have no deep insights or epiphanies. My life has evolved (as it should), and I have become clearer about where I am going. I cried for the first time here last week.
An oddball is a person who refuses to accept abstract norms as universal. And I guess I am an oddball. To be honest, that often really hurts. It is nice to be understood by someone and to offer your heart to someone. The life lesson of the last two years is “set your eyes on Jesus.” I have questions that return. And I have no answers. But answers are overrated. Perhaps a line from Thomas Merton will sum up:
I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you. And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing. I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
I have made it through another day. I have not given up or surrendered. The darkness has not overcome the Light.
I cannot swim, so I do not like wide open spaces of water.
I cannot fly, so I do not like heights or flying in an aeroplane.
I like speaking in public, even to large crowds. (I rather not speak with individuals – see next.)
I like to be alone to focus on what is important to me.
I cannot count.
I have worked on a Four-Week Psalter for Morning and Evening Prayer, but that is not very interesting.
I always work on being “me.” But, to be honest, I think I’m losing the battle. I work at being completely transparent with and in God. What that means, I have no idea!
I read the above and thought it was interesting. (I will not quibble about using the term “hermit”!)
There is a difference between being called to solitude—to a life of focus on Jesus—and choosing to isolate yourself for personal growth. In baptism, each person is asked, “Do you turn to Christ?”. It is our common vocation to find a personal and unique answer. Sometimes, we are called to a particular place. Jesus went into the desert after his baptism, and some people are still called to the desert – to “white martyrdom”. (And, like Jesus, to enter a different fight.) So, the desert is not a call to isolation or personal growth but to follow Jesus in a particular place. It is to be anchored both in the person and the context.
Being alone and following Jesus into the desert is not always the same. Anyway, read the post!!!!
If you have not read Kierkegaard’s parable about the geese, here is a really good version.
Distance! In a physical sense. Love in a spiritual.
I have no neighbours at the moment. One side is the church, and the other is a car park. There is lots of space!
But how am I a good neighbour to those in my life? I make choices that benefit them (or perhaps for their good). And I do that without asking or looking for anything in return. The starting point is not “the good” (an ideal I created) but the good in the other. I have a duty to love, and that duty is to the person, not to an idea. I try to live that with the people in my life. It is not easy and, at the moment, almost impossible.
I have reflected on the ” risk ” question in the last week or so. I feel stuck at the moment. Knowing where to go from here is easy; actually, doing it is different. The risk is in the doing, and, to be honest, I am not in an emotional state to take risks.
So I am stuck, down on myself, irritable, and argumentative (it is better to stay in solitude). I am struggling with prayer. All my hope is in the medication I am on, but that has not worked as well as at other times. I am having really strange vivid dreams.
The biggest risk is doing the thing that will unstuck me. But there are no magical solutions and maybe I am simply the problem.
Refrain: Wait on God alone in stillness, O my soul.
Common Worship, Psalm 62
1 On God alone my soul in stillness waits; ♦
from him comes my salvation.
2 He alone is my rock and my salvation, ♦
my stronghold, so that I shall never be shaken.
3 How long will all of you assail me to destroy me, ♦
as you would a tottering wall or a leaning fence?
4 They plot only to thrust me down from my place of honour;
lies are their chief delight; ♦
they bless with their mouth, but in their heart they curse.
5 Wait on God alone in stillness, O my soul; ♦
for in him is my hope.
6 He alone is my rock and my salvation, ♦
my stronghold, so that I shall not be shaken. [R]
7 In God is my strength and my glory; ♦
God is my strong rock; in him is my refuge.
8 Put your trust in him always, my people; ♦
pour out your hearts before him, for God is our refuge.
9 The peoples are but a breath,
the whole human race a deceit; ♦
on the scales they are altogether lighter than air.
10 Put no trust in oppression; in robbery take no empty pride; ♦
though wealth increase, set not your heart upon it.
11 God spoke once, and twice have I heard the same, ♦
that power belongs to God.
12 Steadfast love belongs to you, O Lord, ♦
for you repay everyone according to their deeds.
Refrain: Wait on God alone in stillness, O my soul.
a fool and his prayer book 