The Scarcity of Solitude

Solitude is an almost entirely unknown commodity among 21st Century humanity. Thoreau said, "The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation," but I would beg to differ--the mass of men are anything but quiet in their desperation. Imagine my anticipation of some much needed solitude in a tent camped along the banks of the gorgeous Lower Mountain Fork River in Oklahoma, prelude to a still greater serenity with fly rod in hand while wading toward a record breaking brown or at least edible rainbow trout (fly fishing is a lot like hunting only it is done in water and one uses a baton instead of a rifle). Then imagine the rapid decline of anticipation when it becomes apparant that the couple camping to my right approximately fifty yards through the trees are in the throes of marital distress by day, supplemented by language reflective of nautical life, and disguised loudly at night by "classic" country western music. You haven't lived until you've sought solitude to the background cadence of "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry," or "Walking the Floor Over You."

Granted, solitude is not equivalent to silence. Nature is anything but silent. Anyone who stands outdoors long enough after sunset encounters the night symphony of creation. But nature does not make noise. Nature makes sound. Waterfowl or insomniatic insects fill the night with music and there is a primal rhythm to it. Each scratch or thrush or squeal or hum is not out of place. In fact, such nocturnal sounds define life as consistent, patterned, purposeful. Then, enter man with man's constant companion--noise. Battery powered radios are the bane of every camper seeking solitude. Engine noise, clammering voices competing for primacy, ceaseless chatter from radio transmission, all of these combine to form a human cacophany that threatens to make nature itself seem noisey, if that were possible.

Why the noise? Why the constant parade of heightened decibels and vitriolic chatter that startles and shatters the serenity of the quiet heart? No possible reason exists apart from this--solitude creates the quiet space for deep reflection, meditation, contemplation. In other words, solitude allows one to think. Herein lies the problem--the vast majority of humanity abhors thought. Thinking is much too complicated an activity for ordinary man. He prefers activity and noise to the quiet pursuit of contemplation. For this very reason Richard Foster writes, "The desperate need today is not for a greater number of intelligent people or gifted people, but for deep people." Depth of personhood comes not from noise but from solitude that makes sense out of both sound and soundlessness. If one creates the space to think, he or she will find him or herself and may indeed be startled at both the brutality and beauty of self. Those who never think never know themselves and those who are never introduced to themselves can never be Christ's disciples as he intended. For, how is it possible to deny one's self in cross bearing if 'self' is an unknown personna? Perhaps the rarity of costly discipleship today (to borrow termonology from Bonhoeffer), at least in the western world, is directly connected to the scarcity of solitude.