solitude and setting sail

at our last meal, james mentioned henri nouwen, and some of his thoughts on solitude and community...

i work alone, from home, and so the idea of solitude is quite an appropriate one for me to be grappling with.
in the passage that james has sent us, he (nouwen) contrasts the states of loneliness and solitude - 'loneliness is painful, solitude is peaceful. loneliness makes us cling to others in desperation, solitude allows us to respect others in their uniqueness and create community.' (he goes on to expand on this idea, but if i try to precis him i won't do him justice...if i can find a link at some point, i'll post it! )

it ties in with the monastic idea of wrestling with your demons in the stillness and the silence... this past week i've been a bit more intentional in my aloneness, trying to work out the solitude and rather than just avoiding the loneliness, and i've ended up having to confront some of my less pleasant traits on several occasions. this is a good thing, but also quite a difficult thing - there are hard lessons to learn, but it's an important process to enter into. it feels like i've stumbled into something quite pivotal and exciting and not a little frightening; something liberating and necessary and potentially rather wonderful; a place where maybe god can get at me (thank you james!)


also, this weekend we were with the revive community at sneaton castle with mark berry, who talked to us about exile and communitas and pilgrimage... there was loads of good stuff to chew on and grapple with in there*. lots of affirmation of the journey that we have made ths far, and plenty of encouragement for the next step ("set sail"). sue and i have been talking about where our little monastic group might go in the light of what was discussed - there's not time or space to open that up here now (i should have been asleep half an hour ago!) but maybe we'll post more over the coming days as the ideas and possibilities settle in our minds...

*see mark's blog http://markjberry.blogs.com/way_out_west/2007/03/a_third_place.html for his bullet points (hope to have his powerpoint slides later in the week for more detailed reflection!)

si ;-)