Catholic Hermit: Solitude Visual, Physical, Interior

[I'm technologically challenged, and somehow am having difficulty embedding the photo of Charles Burchfield's (1893-1967) painting: Solitude.  I will put in a proceeding or preceding post for you to see.  Perhaps at some point I will figure out how to embed in this blog, but thus far the writing gets blocked by the image.  Time to finish up some painting of walls in a closet here in Te Deum Hermitage!  Time to cease fiddling with the art of computer technology.  Praising God I was at least able to rescue the words written, even if not essential to anyone's existence, that is for sure!]

This nothing consecrated Catholic hermit has been drawn to the art of the late Charles Burchfield.  I knew nothing of his work until this past year, from postings by the Burchfield Penney Art Center which include photos of his art as well as excerpts from his journal.

I find it particularly interesting in reading the excerpts and noting the dates given, that the artist would often create a work of art, such as the above painting, and yet later--years later--would put it back on his easel and work on it more: reviewing, altering, lending experience and perspective as his life and vocation progressed.

This painting, "Soliltude", particularly draws me.  I notice the appearance of a cave opening beyond the pool or calmed stream of water.

Since my own recent need to assess and review aspects of my hermit vocation, events which let my mind, heart, and soul know that all was not as it ought be, required alterations, corrections.  

Of course, when we make an alteration in some aspect of our lives and beings, we are not assured that we will hit upon the correction we hope for or desire--or more importantly what God desires and wills for us.  We only know and sense that something is not quite right, or that we recognize something seems incomplete, or that there is some new learning or experience which we must try to incorporate into our "art" of living.

The past few days, having set (or perhaps re-set) boundaries as far as how much communication and the types and content of communication, adaptation is taking place.  (I'm sure the others of whom I had to request a respite from so much communication, also are adapting.)  Adaptation is good, all around!  

We grow through adaptation; we evolve.  We seek and heed and allow God to further form us in His will and also more in His image.

As to solitude, there is more to it than meets the outer eye.   Solitude can be visual, sensory and interior.  We may most often consider solitude as being alone.  The thought or action of being alone can be daunting if not frightening and uncomfortable--even unbearable to some.  I suppose the reaction to sensory solitude is a clue as to our vocations and God's will.

There are a few married hermits in the history of the Church, but if so, they tended not live together.  St. Nicholas of Flu comes to mind.  It thus stands to reason that those called to the married vocation will not be comfortable with much sensory solitude, nor should they; their life's work and purpose involves a spouse and most often, a family, a career outside the home for one or both after children are older, or if need be, while children are young.

For a hermit, sensory, physical solitude is requisite.  The process of adapting to increasing degrees of sensory solitude may take time; but the desire is there, the ability to live in sensory solitude is a grace God gives to those He calls to be hermits.

Solitude is also visual.  We can see with the outer eye many examples that reflect or inherently proffer the essence and reality of solitude.  A cave, a hut in a woods or field or desert, a lean-to or tent, a burrow, a hole in a tree, a closet, cellar, a nook or cranny such as under a stairway in a building--can trigger in our thoughts a reminder or aspect of solitude.

Even colors can evoke and suggest solitude.  Gray tones, bark of trees, stones, deeply dark waters, charcoal of fires--perhaps these hues and shades stir essences of solitude.  

Or, we may see someone who appears to be alone--if we remain with an initial case of solitude as that of "being alone".  We may see someone who reminds us of someone homeless, or who bears the stereotypical visual, exterior affect of the hermits or recluses of history: unkempt hair, long fingernails, wizened and hiding from the hustle of an active life.

Visually, the more I view Charles Burchfield's artistic rendering of "solitude", the more I see solitude in the scene.  The forms of nature, the colors, even the medium of charcoal on paper--all within this work of art delineate and lead further the image of solitude.  And the image is not simply exteriorly visual, sensorily so.  The depiction draws us into a deeper grasp of solitude as an interior experience, a grace.

Rain evokes solitude, at least to me.  Fog and overcast, frost, and heat waves rising from earth, snow, ice, and cloudless skies--visuals, to me, that remind me of the intimacy with God that solitude gifts.

A single word, or a phrase or sentence--can lead to reflection upon the beauty and freedom in solitude.

There can be visual and other-sensory forms of solitude; but all reminders, nudges or outright shoves of solitude, can and hopefully should, lead us toward interior solitude.

And the amount and degree, level, of interior solitude varies depending upon the person and God's will for that person--the person's vocation in this life.  And the phases and degrees of exterior and interior solitude will fluctuate--even and perhaps nuanced especially so in the life experience of a hermit.

Thus, lately I have understood far better why it is that a hermit would not be that involved in the details and dilemmas of those in married vocation or active single life.  In this way, the hermit vocation finds similarity to a priestly vocation; or as a Catholic hermit is in the consecrated life of the Church, there is more a draw to interior life such as many in religious orders. 

However even with priests and ordered religious, a hermit is called to more visual, sensory, and interior solitude than priests and ordered religious.  Even those in contemplative orders, are not called to the amount of sensory solitude to which a hermit might be called by God.

That is why a rare few in the religious orders may become a hermit, live as a hermit, within the religious order's agreement but outside the communal monastery habitat.

St. Charbel Maklouf, comes to mind; or Bl. Charles de Foucald, a hermit priest who lived outside the Muslim community in the Sahara.  Or in essence and substance, actually, lived Bl. Anne Catherine Emmerich--so confined to her bed in a rented room and tended by her sister, visited by a priest now and then and later on, by a man God sent to write her visions.

(While she did not profess vows in the eremitic vocation, as she was an Augustinian nun whose order had disbanded and dissolved), she is an example of some of the forms and phases of solitude that a vocational hermit would, should experience.) 

For a hermit, when there is much noise in the thoughts and the emotions erupt in frustrated cacophony, it is time to bring up to the easel, the "art work" of the hermit's exterior and interior rendering of "solitude".  Adjustments, alterations, adaptations are in order.  Serenity that accompanies solitude, or perhaps more so enhances and fulfills solitude, must be restored, increased, embellished.

The result will be exhilarating in a daring and challenging way.   The element of the unknown and blind-faith of going forth further into the fog, the mist, the unknowns of solitude's interior reaches is worth the awkward moments when one tries to grasp--let alone explain to others--the need for change, for separation from that which is not the hermit's path outward into the temporal world of which so many belong and exist as their rightful place and ways of life. 

This is not to say that those not called by God to be hermits should not desire, pray for, and make time for solitude which includes sensory solitude exterior as well as learning to still the mind, heart and soul for some times of interior solitude.  It is just that due to their obligations in active life (and this for priests and ordered religious in active ministry or living in cloister but yet surrounded and interacting at various times of day with others), the solitude will be far less, and hopefully, for the times in which solitude can be theirs, to cherish that solitude.

The eruption of frustration, desperation, and chaos of which I found myself feeling "over-peopled"-- even when there was but one couple who physically came on Sunday morning bringing Holy Communion"--has beautifully calmed.  Jesus is in my boat, slumbering but awakened to my frantic cries that I was being buffeted and on verge of going overboard from too much intrusion, too much communication, too much dependency by those in the outer world, upset with their temporal trials and various issues.

Jesus has stilled the storm all about me and within me.  I had to cut the tethers and set out into the deep, not knowing quite where for the overcast surrounds, not knowing how deep for solitude is unfathomable.

Yet there is such peace and beauty in the exterior and interior of solitude once again.  The painting of woodwork and walls reflects a functional piece of art that takes one into its evocations of the essences of solitude itself.

God bless His Real Presence in us!

Catholic Hermit: Withdrawing to a Deserted Place

Today's Gospel gives the reaction of Jesus to the news that his cousin, St. John the Baptist, died from decapitation.  John had been imprisoned by Herod for having spoken out against Herod's marrying his brother's wife.  It was actually the wife (a true pawn of the devil by her reaction to John's speaking truth, and then her hideous actions) who wanted John's head cut off.  

There are many fascinating facets to this real-life situation; but the point I'm considering this morning is that Jesus reacted to the terrible news by withdrawing "in a boat to a deserted place by himself" (Matthew 14:13).

Mostly we consider the verses following--that the people tracked Him down, followed after, wanted Him to heal them, speak to them.  He took pity on the crowds, 5000 approximately, and what ensued was not only His speaking and healing but providing them with dinner known as the Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes.  It is a "type" for the Last Supper, and for the celebration of Mass, in many ways, especially with the Eucharist--feeding us yet today with His Body and Blood.

However, I am struck by Jesus' reaction to bad news, heinous actions that would have cut to the core of His human emotions.  He withdrew, by Himself, to a deserted place.  Sometimes we do best to be alone, and when alone, we are alone with God: Solus Deus!

Yet people sought Him out.  They wanted conversation and miracles that would benefit them temporally, such as healing or even just to have the amazement of some fantastic feat that defies the very laws of nature.

I am fascinated by people seeking out others.  I suppose it comes from a couple of phone calls over the weekend that left me pondering, and not in a satisfied way but in a jagged way, causing me unrest until alone with God, the insights came for better understanding.

It has to do with two people who called and who increasingly have not called for what I can offer them.  I know they are concerned, but they are concerned about many things that none of us really has much or any control over, especially not them.  (One is 93 and the other nearly 68 but physically limited from letting a health condition go untended.)

Unless they call seeking out what I can offer, such as the one sometimes has family or other issues to talk over, or asks for prayers for a medical procedure, and the other to  discuss her health issues or living circumstances in a retirement facility, they then want to know what progress I've made here.  And, of course, the temporal progress is next to nothing, and the hindrances are bounteous.  

So I answer with truth.  And then I turn all to the spiritual lessons being learned, such as this past couple of weeks being reminded of and taught much about spiritual combat, right down to doing the God-pivot!  When I mention the obstacles that I must endure and deal with, the callers become frustrated.  When I turn all to God in conversation, and joyfully share the lessons and how God is handling the soul's growth--there is progress in that!--the one caller gives a negative "mmmph" and the other rushes to cut off the phone call:  Have to go now!

Neither call leaves a nothing consecrated Catholic hermit uplifted.  Whether or not in the midst of a gnarly pain siege, "mattressed" with stuff piled all around and nothing but work to be done that cannot be done, or if the calls occur when I am attempting to deal with the hindrances and mounds of workload that will take some of Jesus' miracles to overcome--I am not uplifted by the calls, nor am I utilized with what the only good I have to offer them:  the spiritual of God, the lessons and insights, the glory of how He teaches us in the Order of the Present Moment how to endure, to love, to keep faith.

I am very much in a deserted place, brought here not realizing how deserted, for it is deserted by God's magnanimity of purpose in honing my hermit vocation and teaching my soul, preparing it for better fulfillment of my mission as well as for my earthly death and transition to Consummation: Divine Union.  Heaven.

The Stairway to Heaven now is like the ladder in this hermitage, leading to the second floor without railing or treads other than narrow metal ladder rungs, and the ladder on quite a slanted angle due to part of the stair framing in underneath where the laundry area is.  That is something--a type of cleansing with water beneath the stairway--to consider.  The Stairway to Heaven extends over a place of cleansing beneath, undergirding--flowing through us--the need for repentance each step of the way.

I wonder if the people who tracked down Jesus when he withdrew to reflect upon and nurse the deep wounds of agony the news of his cousin-precursor's beheading would cause in His Heart and Mind--I wonder if they listened to what He had to tell them, listened to what He wanted to share of lessons and insights of God?  Or did they just want temporal talk, sweet-talk, small talk?  Did they want the truth--or platitudes?

After the two phone calls this weekend, being stuck in a cistern of pain, I had time to reflect and examine why it was that the calls left me more fatigued and disconnected, disused, dejected.  (The second call was cut off when another call came in that the caller rightfully needed to answer, which was fine, but no call back later--again, fine as it turns out.)  Yes, I had time to ponder, to ask the Lord about it all, and to listen for answers.

Into the thoughts came St. Charbel Maklouf.  I recall reading and also watching a video on YouTube of his life--hermit mystic saint of Lebanon.  Feast day recent: July 24.  He had been in the monastery awhile when his mother came to see him.  The superior sent a monk to inform Charbel; he refused to see his mother.  In the video she is depicted as weeping at the door to his cell; this probably is not the case, but it does dramatize his reaction on the other side of the door.  The mother weeps while the saint struggles mightily with emotion, but refuses to open the door nor to speak.

Also into the thoughts came another mystic hermit, St. Seraphim of Sarov.  I had read that he had been a hermit awhile when his brothers came, hoping to see him one time before any of them would become old and not see each other again.  Seraphim refused to see his brothers.

I recall telling my spiritual father of these instances from my reading.  My spiritual (director) father, a  diocese priest of many years, said he felt that too harsh.  But, I interjected, they are saints, so the Church must not have felt it disqualifying.  And they grew in holiness and were given graces necessary to fulfill their God-willed missions.

So I'm getting a different perspective for those with religious vocations: holy orders, religious orders, eremitic, virgin, widow, societies of the faithful.  Especially if one is born a mystic plus with a religious vocation, and all other temporal obligations fulfilled--of course the focus should be on turning from the world to that which is above.  The spiritual life in Christ is the purpose, full-time, all the time, within, without, here, there, everywhere.

I can better understand the perspective and lesson Jesus was exemplifying when his mother and brethren came to where he was teaching to a gathering in a home.  Someone came to Him and said your mother and brothers have come and wish to see you and speak with you.  Jesus refused.  He instead proclaimed:  Who are my mother and my brethren?  They are those who hear the Word of God and act on it.

Peace returned within my thoughts despite the havoc the physical pain continued to wreak on body, mind, and emotions.  (It does get horrifically intense, does high-level pain, over and over, never without pain, always another pain siege to come until this body is "deader 'n a doornail," as my late dad would aphoristically say.)

What do my relatives think when they call a mystic who is also a consecrated Catholic hermit?  Do they expect chit chat and talk with no message, no insight from God, no Jesus nor Christian lesson?  If they ask what progress, is not spiritual progress good enough--interesting enough--especially when it is always applicable to their own lives?

When they repeatedly reject the mention even if an insight helpful to some situation they are dealing with, of which they have called me to ask for assistance--what then?  So I can see that the Lord allows the passage of time and growth in relationships, and it is my own clinging, in a way, to the comforts of the temporal family relationships, when the Lord keeps bringing me plenty of souls who desire spiritual discussion, insights, lessons, as well as who do not turn away, cut off, with what I am to be about in my vocation.

Yes, I have explained as best I can what is a mystic, for they have wondered at times; and they know I am a Catholic now, and also that I professed my vows nearly 16 years ago. (Although I don't know if they are aware of how many years or what all that means--but know I am a Catholic hermit very much from the time period I was in the hermit community, briefly wore a habit, and had a religious name, of which I still have but do not use, for the name by which God calls me, my heavenly name, is far more special and unknown to those on this side of the veil....)

Have withdrawn to a deserted place, not by boat but by moving truck, and very much by myself.

Those who come seek me out, track me down, do so via email or phone, or the most rare visit.  What they come for is up to them, but what they will take away is also up to them.  What is up to me is to be true to my spiritual calling, my mission, and to do with what I am called to do as a consecrated Catholic hermit and what mystics "do", how mystics think and feel and are.   

Love God above all things and others as Jesus loves us.  Pray for one another, suffer with Christ on whatever crosses life sets before us to pick up and carry.  And live out my eremitic vows and profession, and be the mystic that God created me to be, which to some seems extreme or strange, but to me is just how it is and has been and will be.

I will let those who do not want what is my duty to God and the Church to offer, what is my innate reality and essence to be--let them not approach unless they desire to receive what it is the Lord gives me to give to them.  Otherwise, let them walk away and deal with their vocations in life, which are different than mine.  For those who stuck around for the dinner Jesus provided, and for those of us who read about it and ponder the meaning, we have gained something most special.

What if Jesus had not withdrawn to a deserted place that day?  What if St. Charbel and St. Seraphim and a slew of other mystics and hermits and consecrated and ordained religious wavered in their spiritual work, their religious vocations?  What good would it be for others or for themselves, then?

As the priest said somewhere in the midst of the ecstasy during Mass, this simple take-away:  Let it go and let it be.