Communal Solitude (George Stulac)
“Our unhappiness arises from one thing only, that we cannot be comfortably alone in our room.… That is why the pleasure of solitude is seen as so incomprehensible.” -- Blaise Pascal.
A few weeks ago, a friend clarified for me the difference between isolation and solitude. “Isolation is forced on us from outside,” she said. “Solitude is chosen.” I’ve been reflecting on her insight during this time of social distancing. Retired in the Boston area, she lives in a seniors’ home where all residents are now strictly confined to their apartments. They are to stay out of the hallways. Meals are delivered to their doors to be eaten in their separate rooms. But my friend is making her forced isolation into a chosen solitude to think, read, reflect, watch, listen, feel, pray, and be alone with God. Also, she is actively reaching out to fellow residents by phone and internet. She embraces the solitude as a “communal solitude” and is trying “to learn how it is that we may contribute to the communal solitude.” Solitude is something I may intentionally prize; communal solitude we may prize together.
One of the biblical examples of isolation and solitude is in 1 Kings 19. Elijah is forced to run for his life because Queen Jezebel has given orders to kill him. After he has fled some distance away, Elijah’s need has become desperate. He is deprived of means to sustain himself where he has fled “into the wilderness” and so near death that he pleads with God, “Take away my life.” Meanwhile, he feels completely separated from his people and bereft of community. He laments to God, “The people of Israel have forsaken your covenant…and I, even I only, am left.”
As I read this passage now, Elijah’s position sounds all too familiar. We, too, have death nearby, as COVID-19 threatens us, our loved ones, and our communities. We, too, face unknowns about the future, with many jobs lost already and the wilderness of severe recession expected, wondering whether we will have the means to finish our research, or have a job, or fulfill other dreams we might have had. And we, too, now live in necessary isolation from family and friends which, I testify personally, can be quite lonely.
But the LORD chooses for Elijah solitude, which is different from isolation. It is in the solitude that Elijah who was nearly dead is raised to life in three important ways. First, Elijah finds the close presence of God: “Behold, the LORD passed by.” Second, he hears wind, earthquake and fire, followed by “a low whisper” (literally, “a thin silence”). Once Elijah pays attention to the low whisper, he hears God speaking: “Behold, there came a voice to him.” Third, he receives the promise that God will resurrect life in Israel, too: “I will leave seven thousand in Israel, all the knees that have not bowed to Baal.” A certain Old Testament scholar at Duke University I happen to know quite well (see recommended readings below) has sent me the manuscript for his next book, which illuminates the remarkable, grand, overall theological thrust of 1-2 Kings: resurrection. The LORD our God gives life – and even brings life out of death.
I find this story of solitude full of hope for us now. Beset by threats to life, livelihood, and society, I go to God lamenting. In my solitude, God enables me, as he did Elijah, to know God’s presence. I pay closer attention to Scripture, where God’s voice becomes no longer a thin silence; I hear God’s word more clearly. From his word, I receive God’s promises giving me hope not only for myself but for society. I realize anew that I need God above all else, for he is my highest good and greatest treasure in all circumstances of life; so I cling to him. I find myself changing toward others in sympathy and mercy; so I long for God’s grace toward them. And I am strengthened with hope in God for the future, because he has shown that he brings life out of death again and again. Jesus’ resurrection is the solid proof.
Now I see that the solitude is important. In it, for a while, we can stop fixing our attention on the fearsome wind, earthquake or fire that threaten us. We can rest from our striving against the stresses which surround us. We can enter a place of listening and receiving.
The isolation so many of us are enduring is not chosen, but solitude can be entered into still. It is a good place to be, a place where the close presence of God can be known, comforting and reassuring us and bringing us hope – a place worth choosing together.
George Stulac is a ministry partner of The Carver Project and works with faculty ministry for InterVarsity Christian Fellowship.
Further Reading:
Blaise Pascal, Pensees (1670)
Daniel J. D. Stulac, Life, Land, and Elijah in the Book of Kings (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming 2021)
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