I am like a desert owl of the wilderness, like a little owl of the waste places.
I lie awake; I am like a lonely bird on the housetop.
All day long my enemies taunt me; those who deride me use my name for a curse. – Psalm 102:6-8
When I go away for a continuing education event, I like to be sure to share a bit of what I learned when I get back. At the end of November I was in San Diego a week for a conference, and so there are plenty of things to share. I’ve already done that a bit since I’ve gotten back, as my sermon on Dec. 1 was largely based on one presentation that I attended as part of the meeting of the Paul Tillich Society, of which I am a board member. Paul Tillich was one of the most important theologians of the 20th century. He was a German Lutheran pastor, who as a young man served as a chaplain in the trenches of World War I. The tragedy and trauma of that experience caused him to focus on becoming an academic theologian, focused on explaining the Christian spiritual experience using non-church terminology. Later, he was one of the first academics forced out of Germany for his criticism of the Nazi party as they rose to power. He relocated to the U.S. and became perhaps the most influential church figure in America in the 1950s, appearing on the cover of Time magazine on March 16, 1959. His thought is wide-ranging and continues to be influential.
Another presentation at the Tillich Society meeting was on Tillich’s distinction between loneliness and solitude. Both are times of being alone in silence, but the experiences are quite different. Solitude is a time for introspection, slow and careful thoughtfulness, and attending to one’s own well-being. Loneliness, on the other hand, is separation. It is being disconnected from others and a brokenness of relationships. It undermines well-being and hampers self-understanding. In his time, Tillich lamented how few people could recognize the difference. It is a problem that has worsened exponentially in the decades since. The capacity for solitude has been eroded by being bombarded with media. We have internalized the idea that it is boring and useless to sit without watching something, listening to something, reading something, getting something done. This means that moments when we are not productive are experienced as lonely rather than as a time of solitude. The irony is that not having time of solitude actually makes it harder to relate to other people, as we relate to others most effectively and beneficially when we are at peace with ourselves, which comes through the ability to sit in solitude. More theologically, Tillich tells us that solitude is a time for connecting with what he calls the “power of being.” By this he means being in touch with the spiritual reality that it is a wonder that we exist, and part of that existence is the connection we have with others. This connection with the power of being is his way of talking about being encountered by God. Solitude is a time when we are ready to experience God’s grace.
The holiday season is a time of many activities and connecting with others. It is also a time that many experience profound loneliness. How might we recover times of solitude in the midst of being so busy, and how might we learn to not be overwhelmed by times of being alone?