From Volume 4, Number 1, Summer 1997

Waiting to Inhale

I looked down at the tires in disgust. With less than 30k miles they were so badly worn that the steel belts could be seen through the rubber. In the midst of working up a good load of righteous  indignation for the purpose of confronting the dealer, the mechanic informed me that the problem was not with the tires. The problem was the car's alignment. The wheel in question was so out of true that the tires  were useless, even dangerous.

It wasn't a problem that had been all that noticeable. True, there was some significant vibration at certain speeds, but those speeds were beyond the speed limit in most areas where I drove. Yet the  problem, though subtle, was real. The ruined tires were the mute witnesses to neglect. Unfortunately, a life out of balance can be just as subtle — and just as devastating. It's often said that contemporary life is  a life out of balance. Human life, particularly in developed nations, is so full of stress that the dysfunction of families composed of sinful human beings create children who cannot cope with that stress without  developing behaviors that create grief for the child and all with whom that child lives. The child carries the behaviors through adolescence into adulthood, adding to the unbalance in an unbalanced world.

Balance is one characteristic for which the Celtic saints are rightly admired. They held the created world in high esteem, without worshiping the creature in place of the Creator. They understood the  value of structure and authority without being enamored of structures and hierarchy. They also understood the complex needs of the human soul which needs at some times rigor and discipline and at other times  gentleness and rest. While there are many other examples of balance found in Celtic Christianity, it is the latter one on which we focus in this issue.

Since the time of the Desert Fathers and Mothers there has been a tension in Christian life between community and solitude. The argument for community is an argument from the Biblical record. While  the Bible speaks, in many poignant passages, of individual responsibility and individual redemption, the Scriptures are consistent throughout in an insistence that God calls us into community. Much in the Scriptures  that seem unfair in terms of the consequences of breaking covenant are stories about the corporate consequences of individual sins. The ideal condition for human beings is the ideal of community. Indeed the terrible  punishment of Cain for the murder of his brother, Abel, is to wander rootlessly, a vagabond with ties neither to the land nor to a people.
The argument for solitude also has Biblical roots, but these roots are  more anecdotal than thematic. The most common citations are from the Gospels, when John appears in the wilderness (the place of solitude), when Jesus enters the wilderness to confront the Evil One, or those  occasions when Jesus sought solitude in prayer or when he would take his disciples away from the crowds for rest, prayer and instruction. Solitude as a way of life, however, appears in the 3rdcentury AD as  Christians, appalled at the corruption and laxity of the Body of Christ, flee the seductions of sophisticated civilization and seek a life of purity and devotion in the harsh desert. It should be noted that the  solitude sought was in the barren wilderness, not in a wooded dell with flowing streams and wildflowers abounding. In the desert, these Christians found not only the presence of God but the oppression of demons.  Many of the stories of the desert saints are stories of spiritual warfare.

The Desert Fathers and Mothers had a profound influence on the development of Celtic Christianity. The idea of the lone saint leaving the safety of clan and tuath to seek God in deserted places and  wrestle with Satan appealed to the heroic culture of the Celts. Yet these solitary monks rarely stayed solitary for long. In most cases their very success drew others to settle close by. Many small monastic  communities, as well as a few of the larger ones, began in such a manner. However, even unintentional community did not quell the longing for solitude. Cuthbert and Columbanus are two of many saints who sought  regularly periods of solitude away from their community. In each case, solitude was not the primary way of life. Whether from a desire to live amongst their brothers, or a sense of responsibility to the call of God  to be in community, these saints moved easily in and out of solitude as the need arose.
Our contemporary world rejects solitude as a form of pathology. In so doing we have renounced solitude and inherited  isolation as our reward. Isolation gives birth to loneliness, and loneliness can kill. Further, people of a society afflicted by isolation and alienation find solitude a frightening, even unbearable experience. This  is all the more tragic because the path of solitude, in part, is a path that leads us fully into the pain of our isolation and beyond it to the place of stillness where the presence of God may be found. Some people  are apparently fortunate in their ability to endure the pain of isolation and embrace the practice of private retreat. However, even this ability to endure may have its pathological side, as in the addict who hugs  his addiction to himself even as the pain and shame of the addiction tear at his soul. On the other hand, those who go in to solitude with God, seeking God, may find both sustenance through any pain of isolation and  the joy of communion with God on the other side of silence.
The pattern of moving naturally between solitude and community is one that we need to recapture in an unbalanced age. Yet "natural" here does  not mean without thought or effort. An unnatural age demands that we learn to be natural once again. For this reason, the St. Aidan Way of Lifespeaks of retreat in the context of the 2nd element: the Soul Friend. It  is part of the work of the Soul Friend to help us prepare for retreat and hold us accountable in taking retreats. These retreats may be no more than a quiet day, or they may be a weekend at a retreat center, or they  may be a group retreat.

The Colorado Aidan Fellowship is planning its second retreat this October at a center high in the Rocky Mountains. We will not simply "show up" and expect God to direct us without any effort  of our own. The retreat itself is a subject of prayer and prayerful preparation. The particular center is one totally dedicated to Christian prayer retreats. There will be no phones, no computers, no television, no  radios to distract us from the solitude of the environment. An annual retreat by itself is not sufficient to restore balance to our lives, but it is certainly an important part of the process. Without that restored  balance we will continue to rush from place to place, from activity to activity, from nowhere to nowhere, breathless, starving for oxygen. The unbalanced life of our culture traps us in its remorseless cycle while  our soul suffers, waiting for us to inhale.