On Solitude

Over the course of this Summer I've been striving to immerse myself in more spiritual disciplines. One of the wonderfully humbling things about practicing spiritual disciplines is that they immediately show you how poorly you practice them!

One of the books I picked up to help challenge me along this path was "The Way of the Heart" by Henri Nouwen. Nouwen asserts that in order to be an effective minister of the Gospel in today's culture we need to habitually practice the disciplines of solitude, silence, and prayer.

Today I'll provide you some of his insights on the spiritual discipline of solitude.

Are you the kind of person who longs for times of solitude or dreads it?

"Just look for a moment at our daily routine. In general we are very

busy people. We have many meetings to attend, many visits to make, many services to lead. Our calendars are filled with appointments, our days and weeks filled with engagements, and our years filled with plans and projects. There is seldom a period in which we do not know what to do, and we move through life in such a distracted way that we do not even take the time and rest to wonder if any of the things we think, say, or do are worth thinking, saying, or doing. We simply go along with the many 'musts' and 'oughts' that have been handed on to us, and we live with them as if they were authentic translations of the Gospel of our Lord" (Way of the Heart, 12).

Have you ever felt like this?

Have you ever wondered if the things you are thinking/saying/doing are worth thinking/saying/doing?

Nouwen says that solitude is the place where transformation happens. Of course there are numerous Biblical examples of this: Israel in the wilderness, Elijah fleeing into the wilderness, John the Baptist baptizing in the wilderness, Jesus being tempted in the wilderness, etc.

Nouwen says that as long as we remain (at least mentally/spiritually, if not physically) in our culture we will remain victims of our culture. And so there is a need (at least mentally/spiritually, if not physically) to flee into solitude were we can allow God to strip away all that needs to be removed in our lives.

"Solitude is the furnace of transformation. Without solitude we remain victims of our society and continue to be entangled in the illusions of the false self. Jesus himself entered into this furnace ... Solitude is the place of the great struggle and the great encounter -- the struggle against the compulsions of the false self, and the encounter with the loving God who offers himself as the substance of the new self" (15-16).

However, Nouwen challenges us to make sure that our times and places of solitude don't become places/times of selfishness: "... solitude is not a private therapeutic place. Rather, it is the place of conversion, the place where the old self dies and the new self is born, the place where the emergence of the new man and the new woman occurs" (17).

And he reminds us that the purpose of solitude is NOT escapism. The purpose of solitude is not to flee the world forever; after all, our mandate as Christians is to engage the world. Rather, our times of solitude allow God to shape and form us and provide us with a perspective conducive to ministry: compassion.

"Here we reach the point where ministry and spirituality touch each other. It is compassion. Compassion is the fruit of solitude and the basis of all ministry. The purification and transformation that take place in solitude manifest themselves in compassion... It is in solitude that compassionate solidarity grows... What becomes visible is that solitude molds self-righteous people into gentle, caring, forgiving persons who are so deeply convinced of their own sinfulness and so fully aware of God's even greater mercy that their life itself becomes ministry" (24, 25, 27).

What role has/does solitude play in your life?

Do you agree with his perspective on Solitude?

What other scriptures can you think of that connect with the spiritual discipline of solitude?

New Dawn Treader Trailer

Hey, check out the 2nd VTD Trailer:

How I Spent my Summer Vacation

So, we just got back from our holidays. I'll do my best to have more "normal" posts starting next week.

We spent some time at Last Mountain Lake:

And we went and visited my parents in the Calgary area. While we were there we went to the Calgary Zoo. Kaleb loved all the animals but was enthralled by the animatronic dinosaurs!

I also enjoyed watching TFC beat CD Motagua to qualify for the group stage of the CONCACAF Champions League:

... be back soon...

The family loaded up in the Jeep and a canoe strapped to the roof; what more could a guy ask for?

Here's a quick pic from Juanita's phone.

Return to the Blogosphere?

So, after a longish break I'm considering returning to my blogging.

I have a few ideas of things I'd like to do, but what about you? For those of you who read regularly, what kinds of things would you like to see on this blog as I consider relaunching?

And, just in case you haven't seen it yet:

When in Rome... 2:1-11

OK, back to Romans. Today will be: Romans 2:1-11.

One of the things I've really noticed in reading Romans again is that it's dangerous to isolate passages. Paul's reasoning is so circular (addressing a certain topic and then re-approaching it from a different/contrasting angle) that it becomes really important to make sure that we grasp the bigger context of the letter before drawing conclusions from a specific passage. Because of this, Romans is really easy to "proof-text."

It is because of this greater context that I think we need to make sure that when we read these verses at the beginning of Romans 2 that we see ourselves as being the ones addressed. I think there is the temptation to read the end of chapter 1 and the beginning of chapter 2 as addressing other people. In contrast, I think the full context of Romans tells us that God's judgement falls on all people; these passages are talking about me.

The problem is that, in at least some sense, we are all hypocrites. Of course, this theme is developed further in chapter 7 but I think we see the beginnings of this thought process here in verses 6-8. Unfortunately, I see both vs. 7 and vs. 8 at work in my life. I strive to "...by patience in well-doing seek for glory and honour and immortality..." but all too often it is vs. 8's "self-seeking" that is lived out in my life.

So in this passage Paul continues to lay the foundations for his letter: there is not a single person upon whom judgement does not fall. (it's not until later on in chapter 3 that Paul really starts talking about the solution to this predicament)

This brings to my mind our tendency as North American Evangelicals to dwell so much on forgiveness and freedom that we lose the sense of the enormity of our failure to live as true, image-bearing humans. Our (ie. my) inability to live holy lives is nothing less than catastrophic.

I think that this is something many of us need to spend a bit more time meditating on... I know it might not be "fun" to dwell on such thoughts, but that's not the point is it?

I'm not sure how to segue that into something to spark comments so I suppose I'll just leave it there! I guess maybe the upside to this post is we're not alone; we're all in the same boat (vs. 11)!