The Battle of Solitude

No, solitude is not a battle, although there are many battles that come with solitude, and one of those is the battle against asserting Me over You; the battle to not need supremacy. In short, the battle of humility. When the realization hits that absolutely nothing in this world is any of my business, as one of the late monks of Gethsemani so aptly noted, the battle begins inside of me to assert my selfhood against it.

Yes, that's right, I try to battle against humility. You see, I have a great love of being right, being the "I told you so" guy, and of always looking good. I like to know best, and to be the law-giver. I has appeared at least five times so far in this paragraph, and that is the problem. I. I am the problem. When do "I" stop and let God Be? That is an excellent question, and one that God is pounding me with day and night.

I am the problem in my own life. It isn't other people, or noise, or silence, or singing and dancing in the streets, it is my own need to be approved, right, applauded, over-loved -- those are my problems. Yet what am I to do with such things if not turn them over to God? Again and again I find myself saying "here I am what do you want me to do?" The answer tonight seems to be a flow of images where I get what I want and am allowed to see how perfectly dreadful such experience would make me.

Here is an analogy of the spiritual life as I'm experiencing it: God has a big 1950s Cadillac; the first movement is God revs up the engine, puts it in drive and runs over me breaking all my bones. The second movement: God puts it in reverse and back over me ripping off the top layer of skin. The first movement teach the dependence upon God alone, and the second is the beginning of meeting myself -- really meeting myself, and facing each layer of ego and sin as it is peeled back.