But it is meant to become beautiful. And it becomes so as we persevere in peering into it not as a manual but as a mystery. 

The Greek word parakypsas is the key to how we read Scripture. Among other meanings, it is to stoop down, as when one cranes the neck, and to gaze with curiosity into something. James, the brother of Jesus, employs this word to describe how we are to look into the New Way we have been given. So different and so free is this "perfect law of liberty" that it requires a constant, curious looking-into for it to transform us as we apply it to our lives. (James 1:25)

Here is what is telling: that same word used by James—parakypsas –is the word John, the best friend of Jesus, employs to describe how Peter, John himself, and Mary Magdalene stoop down and peer with curiosity and perplexity into the empty tomb where the body of their lord had lain, but is now gone—with the grave clothes still there, neatly arranged. (John 20:5 and John 20:11). And Luke, the careful historian, uses the same word when describing Peter looking intently and with wonder into the empty tomb.

In the same way that the first disciples stooped down, craned the neck, and gazed with curiosity into the mystery of New Life from Death, we, too, are to stoop down, crane the neck, and gaze persistently into the mystery of Scripture, with all of its voices and perspectives, until the puzzle pieces turn over and the beautiful picture is revealed. What we will find is that the picture is not merely on the surface of the Scripture; it is in the tomb of our hearts, coming alive and making them new. The unfolding of Scripture parallels the unfolding of Christ inside of us. And that is when not merely Scripture, but the life we find ourselves in, begin to become beautiful. 

So it is with grace. You did not create it, nor did you choose the substances from which it draws—blooms and blossoms beyond your reach. But there it is, dripping and ready for you. Your task is to draw it out, take it in, and brighten your eyes. Aloof to the sting. Aloof to the fear. Aloof to all things except that which will make you fully alive.

In our everyday language, to “fall from grace” means to fail moral standards, to commit “the big ones” on the sin list of our culture. But Paul defines it another way. To “fall from grace” is to attempt to live by abstracted codes rather than faith in Jesus. It’s a fractured focus. It’s swatting at the bees. If my eyes become pre-occupied with tracking every busy, buzzing thing, and if my heart becomes absorbed in making sure I am insulated and isolated from every possibility of toxin, I will lose the one thing that will strengthen me. I will build a life around box making or hive hunting, never exploring the sweetness that hides inside both.

But our strength comes from neither routine, nor ceremony, nor even a quiet time. Nor does it come from seven steps or twelve principles—although principles, like unscalable mountains, constrain us to search for the green valley where we can flourish. No, our strength comes from grace. Our hearts must feed on this.

Jesus is full of grace and truth. This is who He is. To feed on grace, therefore, is to feed on Him. Yes, Christ is that vulnerable. He offers Himself, hanging there, His life dripping out of Him, the same life that created the unreachable blooms of the first creation. He offers Himself, rising again, a new creation so saturated with life that we must renew our minds to recognize Him—though our hearts intuitively burn when we are near Him.

To fall from grace is to forget the free honey and devote our lives to bee control. How tragic this is. Even the very bees point us to life: their intricate dances communicate where the blooms are, and their labor of gathering hidden nectar produces a substance so abundant that there is more than enough to share, the eating of which only makes room in the hive for a fresh harvest.

An epic drama is unfolding in the wilds of South Texas, though Man does not yet know. The jaguar named Oracle crosses into the Rio Grande Valley in search of the Lonely Tree, where the last jaguar prayed for a successor before Man killed him seventy springs ago.

Oracle discovers the animals have “forgotten their names”—the ones Adam gave them in Eden. But Oracle remembers. When others meet him—a wounded butterfly, an angry alligator, ancient trees—Eden’s memory awakens in them.

Oracle befriends Patch, a misunderstood raccoon, and commissions him to help a boy washed ashore after a mysterious accident: Paco, whom the birds name Miracle. Patch persuades Plod the horse and Bog the toad to join him in helping Miracle find his parents. 

The way to the Lonely Tree is forgotten and dangerous, crisscrossed by ironthorn fences and bands of molten earth now hardened: the realm of Man. What will he do when he discovers Oracle? Can Oracle become the new Lord of the Valley in answer to the last jaguar’s prayer? Find out in this richly poetic tale of friendship, courage, and destiny that will awaken the imagination of children and adults alike. 

You can read more of my written works here.

So it is with the kind of peace I am describing. It is not a removal of pressure, but an equal and opposite positive pressure that keeps the crushing weight of the world at bay while, inside that space, there is grace to work and rest. There is space to live. And, in the same way that a submarine eventually rises to the surface to take in the other world of wind and sky, we, too, ultimately, draw our life not from the pressures around us, but from the world above. It is that world which creates in us the buoyant space of grace, no matter how deep we must go through the pressures of our current ocean tides.

This is why solitude, at least in the early stages of practicing it, is more like an intolerable furnace than a placid lake. Dross rises above our good, spiritual intentions. Perhaps this is why few people proactively engage in solitude. We are weary enough, we imagine, without creating an empty space for our turmoil to be remembered all at once! It is easier to jam the earbuds in to our heads and “chill.”

And yet this is one of the most precious gifts of solitude: to recover the things we forget but must remember; to wrestle against the things we remember but must forget; and to name one-by-one the things that distract and distort our souls until destiny shines clearly.

What jeweler would be content with unrefined ore? Certainly the craftsman desires purified metals. How much more should we, whose souls are more valuable than gold, desire that the dross be revealed? How much more should we endure discomfort to discern the treasure of tasks and truths that we acquire if we patiently stay in the furnace of our solitude?

One of the purposes of life is to be fully alive: rich in soul, we enrich the lives of others. But that cannot happen while our hearts are out of order. To set them aright, we need to see what is there. Solitude allows this to take place. The practical reality of this is a sequence of choices. I recall a certain thing I am to do for my daughter: I write it down. I remember an offense: I forgive. I perceive that I may have offended another: I resolve to ask forgiveness at the first opportunity after the session of solitude is over—or perhaps before. I have a thought: I take it before the Lord and ask him to split it open, to judge the motive and intent of the idea. I desire a self-destructive passion: I turn to the One who can rescue me. I endure a deep regret: I ask Him come near and suffer with me.

These are only examples, but they suffice to show the dynamic of the dross. For we are not alone in our furnace. We are not even the ones who create the fire. The One who does—who Himself is a consuming fire—does so with the motive of self-giving love. “I want to stand with you here,” He says. “On the other side of the fire, you will come out as gold, irrevocably alloyed with Myself.”

So we see that the purpose of the furnace of solitude is not merely purity, but intimate friendship: the very thing we long for. 

That choice was costly. By the time the revolution he had championed failed, Milton was blind, in debt, and in danger of execution. The new regime ordered a hangman to publically burn his writings. Moreover, Milton had become a widower twice over, and he had buried his only son. Broken to this degree, Milton, in relative seclusion, turned to write the great epic poem for his nation that he had long aspired to write.

Toward that end, he knew that contemplation during a regular, daily time of solitude would help open the creative wellspring. Several other key habits contributed as well, which, together, caused him to flourish even at a life stage of severe brokenness and disillusionment.

Milton’s contemporary John Aubrey wrote down a recollection of the poet’s personal, daily routine:

“He was an early riser, scilicet [Latin: to wit], at 4 o’clock mane [Latin: early in the morning], yea, after he lost his sight. He had a man read to him. Then he contemplated. At 7 his man came to him again, and then read to him and wrote till dinner [a mid-day meal]…after dinner he used to walk three or four hours at a time (he always had a garden where he lived): went to bed about 9. Temperate man, rarely drank between meals. Extreme pleasant in conversation, and at dinner, supper, etc. but satirical. He had a delicate, tunable voice, and had good skill…He had an organ in his house; he played on that most.”

Contemplation—along with a good night’s sleep, light exercise, temperance in meals, lighthearted social time, and music—created a restorative and productive environment.

Milton employed another habit that contributed to his creativity, specifically in the writing of his 10,565-verse epic Paradise Lost. He meditated on a particular point each evening as he went to sleep. In the morning, he took the fruit of his meditation, which, overnight in the depth of his sleeping mind, germinated into a tender plant of fresh verses. The following morning, he would recite them to a person (an amanuenses) to write down. In an interlude in the epic poem of Paradise Lost itself, Milton describes the process of reflection that transects both the conscious and the subconscious and enables him to receive inspiration for his poetry:

In darkness, and with dangers compassed round,

And solitude; yet not alone, while thou

Visitest my slumbers nightly, or when morn

Purples the east: still govern thou my song,

Urania, and fit audience find, though few. (Book VII. 27-31).

“Dangers compassed round” may refer to his danger of being executed by the new political regime. “Urania” is a pagan allusion to the divine source of poetic inspiration, a name Milton appropriates and ascribes as a shadow-name of none other than the Holy Spirit himself.

Milton’s dependence on the Holy Spirit motivated him, in his blindness, sorrow, and circumstantial vulnerability, to create space for contemplation, where the gift of God he had been given could flourish, grow, and bear good fruit for many. 

But I am forgetful and a poor liar. I keep dropping the mask. I keep revealing what I really think and feel. It places me at risk of rejection. It places me at risk of sharing at the wrong time and in the wrong manner. Inadvertantly, it raises questions, sometimes unfair questions, that might imply that something is wrong with the culture we serve. It might imply that I am dangerous, perhaps not life-threatening, but at least embarrassing. My transparency might require a lot of explaining. It may require more time than people have. We live in a world whose sacred values include the double-headed eagle of efficiency and control. Transparency is inefficient. It requires time. Transparency reveals how fragile our sense of control is. It brings people to the light of things, and we would much rather abide in the shadows; we hope that somehow, there, we can repair ourselves for a better showing at the masked ball.

I understand the need for discretion. I understand that those who are sloppy with their thoughts and feelings are about as helpful to wholesome relationships as a bobbing cork is helpful to calming the sea. Instinctively, we brush the bobbing corks away. I know I do. I am afraid of such people, for I know that no matter how much I try to please them, I am only creating a list of wrongs for the emotionally immature person to add to his thick file after I have rejected him. It is a kind of undiscerning excess of words that inevitably leads to their rejection. I am not talking about that kind of transparency—such a form only reinforces the lie that we are not loved.

One must be prayerful before one is transparent. One must remain silent until the Still Small Voice bids you to disclose yourself. One must understand that the notion of self-expression is based on very hollow assumptions, as is the practice of “venting.” Many of those assumptions go back to the lie that each of us is the center or our own reality.

And yet, there is a calling upon each of us to reveal our faces to one another in gentleness, and sometimes only gradually, without demanding any specific response—for that would be mere manipulation. There is a loving art to discarding the mask and saying, “This is who I am; this is what I say from the fullness of my heart and from long hours of contemplation. Here it is. Here I am. I realize you may very well misunderstand me and reject me—or, more painful still, you might understand me precisely and therefore reject me all the more urgently—but I cannot bear the thought of living the lie of a persona."

Why should I spend my life creating an image that is less eternal than the very body I live in? My body one day will be resurrected—more than just re-assembled, but fully realized, as the oak tree is the realization of the clod-borne acorn. But my carefully crafted persona? No, this shall perish as the vapor that it is. Therefore, instead of presenting a persona to you now, I present to you my self. It is much more common and broken and odd and normal and troubling than you may have thought. There are radical incongruencies within it, strange, out-of-place absurdities, and profound fissures of pain that create a bent of dysfunction running like a fault line through my logic. But where else can authentic love begin? Where else, tell me? And where else can true purpose and destiny be discovered, if not in the clearing, away from the thick leaves I hide among? Only from that solid ground can I see the stars and map the course they tell for me. Only there can you point me to them. Only there can all these things converge and reveal the Maker, who says, “Fear not, you are worth more than many stars and many sparrows. Follow Me.”

Call to mind the picture of a rugged nomadic tent:

• The tent is your heart, the seat of your hopes.
• The wind is the disappointment that assails you.
• The tent pegs are truths that anchor your heart. If they are secure, you have a safe place to work through your disappointment with God in honesty and courage.

Here are four tent pegs to get you started in creating the zone of solitude you need during the wind of disappointment:

1. God is at the center of the story and you are not. He is much more than a potter, and you are much more than clay, but God and you are these things, and to acknowledge this reality sets the stage for authentic venting and listening.

2. Christ’s scars are mouths that speak solidarity with our sorrows. Rather than ask, “God, why did you let this happen?”, perhaps it would be better to ask, “God, where are you?”. The answer: He is with you, crying out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” and leading you to trust and hope again. (Psalm 22, Lamentations 3) In the search for answers, He Himself is the answer.

3. Routine is a set up for God to show up. Unite a daily pouring out of your heart to a cycle of work, rest, and friends. This reduces you to common, quiet clay, but it also renews the season when He breathes into you, and you “become a living soul” again (Genesis 2:7). You are exercising a form of waiting where you are woven into a greater Story, the one where all things work together for good. (Romans 8:28)

4. Disappointment is not the final chapter of the story, for the end involves laughter. The resurrection of Christ reveals that all disappointments, even that of death, are not the end. If anything, disappointment is a sure sign that you have not reached the end of your story. For with the resurrection, we discover that the tragedy will, by an astonishing sequence of events, turn out to be a comedy.

Here is a message I gave on 6 July 14 about responding to disappointment.

Grace to you today.

By making time to be still and recollect things after an appointment, you stand a higher chance of remembering things you desire to do and things desired of you. When you place a small portion of solitude before and after each conversation, meeting, or event, you will more likely recall that which you would like to convert to action. Then you can establish a slot of time in which to do it. Like the good follow-through of the master tennis player, each action is completed well in preparation for the next.

Also, by making it your custom to plan a five-minute space of solitude prior to the official start time of an event, you tend to arrive at the appointment on time. This form of punctuality creates a wealth of peace that enriches the quality of your meetings. Your moment in solitude ahead of the event makes it possible for your soul to disengage from the previous experience (and perhaps the exasperation of getting to the meeting). It also creates the space in which you can gather your thoughts for what you are about to engage in. Priorities come to mind. You recall specific tasks and people that are set before you. These things all take place within an interlude of quiet (at least inner quiet) free from the fluster of trying to get to the location of the appointment, for you are already physically there. Now your soul can “catch up” in the solitude in order for you to be fully present in the new of the appointment.

We have here a secret to a life well lived: setting as bookends on either side of each appointment a portion of solitude. For most of us, such solitude will be a brief interlude, perhaps only four or five minutes, perhaps even less. But it creates a depth of presence and a grace of recollection that adds value to our meetings, our classes, our routines of worship, even our entertainment. Otherwise, we run the risk of not living, but “being lived.” We may show up at appointments with no tranquility, and we may leave with an immediate forgetfulness of what has just passed through our ears and before our eyes.

So slow down. Put off checking your phone. Practice solitude as bookends before and after each appointment. You will recall who you are, where you are, and what you are to do. Thus time will not be something elusive, but rather, redemptive. You will manage it well, for wisdom will come to you in the quiet of the before and the after of each appointment—if you establish the simple custom of being still for a moment.

Solitude intersects both dimensions. We place our physical frames in a place of aloneness, set apart from elements of the human world that stir, distract, excite, and exhaust. For the ancients, this place was the desert. For us, we must create our own desert, where we intentionally set ourselves apart from the “star stuff” of our age. When we do, a crisis happens: we are reminded that we are but dust. But it is this very desert—this place of awareness that we are limited, finite, perhaps broken—that often offers the greatest potential for touching the invisible. When we remove ourselves from all that shakes and blusters and conflagrates our senses, the still small voice may be heard.

This can be a risky thing. We might realize how alone we are. We might realize how dust-like we are: physical beings whose physiological nature is plagued with appetite, instinct, and genetic chains that have no more power to save us than the fossil records of our ancestors.

But the great risk also offers the great gift. When the mirage of daily affairs is withdrawn, the reality of Love may be revealed. And Love always has within it the triple balm of comfort, of calling, and of courage to repent.  The source of these things is not physiological. It is neither endorphins nor synapses. It is a Person who knows our true name. And when He speaks to us, He who is fully alive participates in our dust. And we flourish.

We are to cultivate solitude at the same level of priority as that of brushing our teeth. Let this statement sink in. Certainly, even when you are at your most frantic, you do not often forget to make time to brush your teeth. (I have been told that the proper length of time for brushing your teeth is equivalent to humming “Happy Birthday to You” three times. To my shame I admit that I have not yet matured to that level.) In the same way that brushing your teeth has become a routine, non-negotiable habit, solitude must become the same.

Let us take this parallel a step further. Brushing your teeth is a simple daily habit you perform one or more times a day; likewise, you can set aside brief moments of quietness and aloneness one or more times a day.  For example, I often set aside the first five minutes of launching into a task for solitude. If I am at my desk, it means I just sit there, perhaps with eyes closed, listening, recollecting, whispering a prayer. Then I get busy.

I often do this when I return home—after greeting my family first, for without love, solitude is nothing. There is a certain corner of the house where I go and kneel. (Without me meaning to, this habit has created a calm confidence in my children.) Other times I employ solitude when I have a space of time commuting between this and that or when I am preparing to go to sleep. To my surprise, this habit has become more routine than the original tooth brushing habit. I need to shore that one back up before the next visit to the dentist.

Let us take this analogy to a final step. One act of brushing my teeth will not save me from cavities any more than one five-minute session of solitude will transport me to bliss. But, be it teeth or tranquility, it is the thousand little acts of doing, the cumulative effect of constant routine, that creates the zone of grace.

The beacon of the lighthouse turns at all times, that it might be ready for the unique time when the ship comes in. So it is with solitude. The ship will come if you always remain faithful to the lonely lighthouse.

If you cultivate this routine, you may find that the busy-ness does not slow down, but it does take on more beauty. You may find that each moment takes on a greater sense of significance, perhaps even sacramentally so. The sprinter’s track our culture lays out for us is transformed into a journey where you become fascinated by people and places and the “presents” they bring.

When you return to your next interlude of solitude, the aloneness becomes adorned with the awareness of the Delightful and the Sacred and the Mysterious that have gently permeated your daily tasks. Solitude becomes celebration, your own uniquely adorned arrangement of joy. Such a joy cannot be hidden. Even without words, it becomes a guide for others like a silent, steady lighthouse. And that’s worth celebrating.

[Photo is of Cape Neddick's "Nubble" lighthouse, in York, Maine. Photo courtesy of Jeremy D'Entremont of www.newenglandlighthouses.net.]

It is not simply ambition that creates this anxiousness. Often, it is also love, that Great Complicator, that energizes us until we go too far.  “I must work hard for the sake of those I love!” we say. Yes. Love does indeed take the form of hard work. You may add, “It is a worthy sacrifice!” Indeed it is. Few things are worthier. However, if you throw solitude to the wind in the midst of your zeal and earnest desire to accomplish more things more quickly, you have set a course for brown out and burn out.

“But I want to please my loved ones!” you may insist. I assert your loved ones will have little left of you to love once you have lost your soul in the process of gaining your world. Someone else more devout may say, “But I want God to be pleased with me!” I suggest that the god you are serving is not the God who, though Almighty, set a boundary line on his very own works, setting it all aside—though His limitless potential would have permitted continuance—and creating a zone of grace called “rest”! (Genesis 2:2)

Keep working hard for those you love, and keep serving heaven. But in all your drive, remember what the expert sailor knows. Remember to “hike out.” The man of the sea will counterbalance the force of fierce winds by leaning out into the opposite direction of the wind and at a right angle to the bow as it plows through the water. In so doing, the counterbalance prevents the sailboat from capsizing. His “hiking” even increases the graceful progression of the sailboat to its destination. You see it now, don’t you: one of the most “efficient” things you can do is counterbalance your fierce activism with solitude.

What this means is that you, you yourself—not the calendar of your culture or the timetable of the strong— you, yourself must pronounce the rest you need. You must intentionally insert it into your busy labors, commanding, as God did to the ocean waves of his creation, “This far you may go, and no further. Here is where your proud waves cease.” (Job 38:11)

If you do this, you return to the beehive of human endeavor with the hidden nectar of a rare flower. It will influence your work; it will affect those around you; and you will enjoy a re-infusion of gentle, buoyant composure in the day-to-day duties of life.

Solitude by its very nature requires a laying down of control. It means a temporary truce with the unfinished business that assails you. The truce may appear unilateral. “If I do not act, these things will overrun me,” you may think. “If I do not catch up, they will drag me away. If I do not take advantage of the now, I will miss opportunity.” And these things may be true. When you cease to engage in getting things done, your inactivity may cause a loss of position or possession or power. Over time, you may acquire a reputation for aloofness. You may become known for your slowness. You may be passed over for promotion as one who lacks ambition.

But, as with all holy risks, the losses are parallel to the gains. You may become known as someone rich in peace. You may become someone others intuitively trust. You may become clear-minded. Your may acquire an aroma of authentic compassion that causes others to feel safe, and, therefore, liberates them to do well.

But it is this letting go of control that struggles against such gain, this shutting down of our communication devices, and – harder still – our incessant thoughts about what we must do and who we must see. It is difficult to let go of these things. Here are three thoughts that may enable you to more effectively let go of them.

1)     Realize that you are in charge of your thoughts; they are not in charge of you. You are the manager of them. If you liken the thoughts to a committee, with their deliberations and pro-con arguments, liken yourself to the chairman. You moderate, begin, and end the committee meetings.

2)     Realize that a time of reflection and composure may enable you to return to your tasks with a renewed sense of clarity and priority. In other words, you may do a better job at getting things done; if not more efficiently, at least more elegantly. And people who live their lives in a state of gracious execution contribute to the overall health and joy of their circle of influence.

3)     Realize that there is a greater grace that overshadows you. The ancient word for this is faith. If you understand that you are invited to participate in Providence, and not merely master your fate, then you can afford to let go of the helm and explore the wind for a while. A caveat is in order here, however. Faith is itself a risk. At least, for the beginner it is. It means you are accommodating the Invisible. It means you are making a basic assumption that God is good. It means you are acknowledging that in order to rise above the lie of a scattered life, you must be still and know the One who is already there, full of joy, working all things together for good, even your time of risky inactivity called solitude.

As a concession, I balance those statements with the reality that some people do indeed learn to achieve a degree of solitude that is better than others. They are, insofar as solitude is concerned, mentors of others. And some people, through the use of their financial means and personal connections, do indeed have an easier time at reaching a secluded getaway. If you can choose between Nova Scotia or New York City for solitude, the choice is clear.

Nevertheless, solitude is something learnable and doable within the bustle of the city, apart from esoteric knowledge and special privileges. In fact, there is a place where, for the one whose financial limitations restrict access to therapeutically refreshing places, necessity compels the learning of the skill of solitude to a more earnest degree, to the effect that the man who learns to create a zone of within the crowded town may end up achieving more composure than the man who, though geographically secluded, carries with him to his paradise a hundred worries about his projects and purchase. The fewer the cares, the better one sleeps. And wealth can purchase many cares along with its comforts.

Since true solitude is accessible to the common man, what does this imply? It implies that the basic skill is not circumstance dependent. It is mindset dependent. It relies on a person’s ability to manage himself, on his learning how to artfully disentangle himself from the thorny branches of daily affairs; if not a full geographic disentanglement, at least in spirit and in attitude. I may be far from a tropical beach, but I am not far from silence in a closet or room that, for the moment at least, is quiet until the work schedule fills it again with labor.

Solitude for the common man implies a calm confidence to detach, not in a spirit of rejection, but out of love. I love the One who refreshes me, and I love the ones I am responsible for. Out of love for them, I detach for a time to think, to pray, to reflect, to write in a journal, or to take a long walk. I return to my relationships with a revived and deepened capacity to love well, because I have been to the well.

“Some say we raccoons are good at burgling,” Patch explains to the jaguar Oracle, “but we [raccoons] always say we’re good at borrowing. For nothing’s really ours, you know, or yours. I mean no offense to say so, Sire, but sooner or later another enjoys what you gather, and lastly the sea or the soil or the air take it back. And yes, I admit, our clan has its secrets on how to borrow, one for each ring on our tails.”

As Oracle and Patch get to know one another, the raccoon discloses that humans and animals have many names for his kind:

“I’ve been given many names, Sire. I’ve been called Robber of Nest Eggs and Hatcher of Pranks. Trickster, huckster, slacker, shirker. A trapper waiting to be trapped. A hat waiting to be made. The Algonquin mantribe calls us, ‘He Who Scratches with His Hands.’ The dwellers in the manplaces call me pest. I like the Algonquin name better.”

Oracle possesses the Breath of Remembrance. When he breathes on an animal, he remembers his true name, the one Adam gave him in the Garden of Eden. Oracle summons Patch to him for the Breath. The raccoon is overwhelmed by shame:

“Sire,” Patch said, and the word struggled to travel through his dry mouth, “you come from a line of kings; I come from a line of thieves.” And his nose throbbed to hold back tears.

“Welcome, Fair Bandit,” said Oracle.

And the raccoon drew near and bowed before the Lord of the Valley . . . Then [he] breathed on him . . . and “He Who Scratches with His Hands” remembered what the father of all Algonquin, and every other tribe, had named the raccoon’s first ancestor at the gate to the Garden of Eden—before the Tree of Life vanished, and all wandered into the wilderness alone.

The question, “What is my true name?” is a question each of us must answer. If we do not know, we are lost. Many voices tell us who we are. But we need the voice of truth and love to have the final say. St. Catherine of Siena says, “If you are what you should be, you will set the world ablaze.” And St. Iranaeus says, “The glory of God is a man fully alive.” We become fully alive when we know who we are. At one level, this is the message of the New Testament: “Be who you are.”

You learn your true name from the One who created you. The name He speaks is not merely a noun or an adjective. It is a story. It is a living thing. It is the unique thought that He spoke. And the thought became: you.

• Silence: this is not the same as shyness. Nor is it a negative brooding or a hostile position toward noise and people. It is a composure that smiles at its surroundings without the need to inquire of them. It is a putting to bed of curiosity or social obligation. It is rest.

• Breathing: solitude begins with the spirit. Involved in this is your breath, that place where the oxygen of this world and the part of you that is too deep for words intermingle: the pneuma, or wind, what in Arabic is the ruh and in Hebrew the ruach. Slow, deliberate breathing, therefore, affects the spirit and brings it to a place of composure and openness.

• Stillness: ceasing activity enhances receptivity. By reducing the motion of the body, you become aware of that which can nurture and restore you. This is why solitude could begin with activating the “Do Not Disturb” mode on the phone, shutting the lid to the laptop, or laying aside a magazine. But stillness is risky: boredom and drowsiness may overtake you. Unprocessed personal pain may resurface. And yet, if theses weaknesses disclose themselves, they are part of the very reason why solitude exists: to be a gentle furnace of transformation.

Solitude enables you to be alone anywhere. It is a setting apart of self. And yet, your goal in being alone is not to isolate yourself, but to enrich it. Out of that overflow, your world becomes richer: the moments of life become deeper, weightier. New levels of meaning become clear. People become fascinating even in their ordinary state. The common becomes holy.

There are, of course, practical considerations that either meddle with solitude or enhance it, but there are subjects of other posts. My point here is that your solitude is a portable zone you can set up. You can add to the peace of a place in the same way others may take away the peace of a place. Solitude places you among the peacemakers.

Once you realize that you carry with you this portable tent called solitude, you may find you become a better observer of what is happening around you. You will be less affected by it, and yet, due to your own deepening, enjoy a deeper appreciation of it. Your influence will be more welcome when your turn comes. The snow that has lain long on the mountaintop becomes a refreshing stream to those who thirst in the dusty valley below.

Think about it.

I submit to you that a key to life is learning to cultivate solitude.

It is not the only key. It may not even be the essential key. But without learning the art of quiet contemplation, you may never move beyond what one friend calls, “living like a gerbil on the wheel” and another calls “the lie of a scattered life.” You may move through your nights and your days in reaction to pressures rather than a response to inspiration.

Creating space for solitude is a very difficult thing to do for most people. It seems much easier to launch a military campaign or build a theme park than to do what the French monk A.D. Sertillanges describes as “creating an interior zone of silence.”

So how on earth do we find solitude? That is what I intend to explore in this blog.

Here are several assumptions I have about solitude. Each merits its own elaboration. You can expect posts on these as we go deeper into restoring this lost art to our lives:

1)    It must be accessible to all, from the Brooklyn taxi driver to the Tibetan monk. The prisoner and the imprisoned, the quarterback and the quadriplegic must be able to reach it with equal grace.

2)    It must be affordable, not merely the domain of a five-star tropical island I may never visit. (Though that would be very good if I could.)

3)    It must be simple, something a child can understand, and yet something the philosopher can reflect upon and discover such profound meaning in that he becomes a child again.

4)    It must be reproducible, something I can model for my children and mentor for my co-workers, my staff - anyone whom I am leading or influencing.

5)    It must be humble. I must recognize its limits, its vulnerability, its risk, and its dependency on help from outside of myself. A soul cannot restore itself. Once alone in solitude, we look to help from Above. A desert needs rain to bloom.

6)    It must be authentic. In other words, it must be equally able to succeed or fail. Only something with a great risk carries with it an equally great reward.

There is a lot to unpack in these six little essentials. I trust that what I write may help you. Let us learn to live life from the living well that can spring up within our solitude.

By joy I do not mean a giddy naïveté, nor an anemic optimism that tries to look on the bright side of things. By joy I mean someone who looks you in the eyes, even perhaps with tears of the pain of the moment brimming at the lids, and says, "This is not the end; it is only the beginning!" Joy sees resurrection on the other side of the death of the now. Indeed, joy itself is the first gleam of the dawn of that resurrection.

My beloved friend Ray Mayhew gave me permission to revise and contribute to an essay he has written, entitled, Choose Joy. Here is the link. Choose it. You will be glad you did.

Contemplation - the classic word for deliberately thinking - is not just a meandering into the unknown. It requires the courage to process the truth. It requires, as all things do, the discipline of consistency. And, perhaps most important of all, it requires the humility to recognize that you do not know the whole truth yet, and, perhaps, you have your work cut out for you to separate what’s true from what’s not in your cluttered closet of thoughts.

And what may be most humbling of all is the reality that though I may have contemplated something, it does not necessarily guarantee that the outcome will be successful. I may never be able to write a book entitled, How I Learned to Think My Way Out of Life’s Problems. But one thing contemplation will do is make every decision and every word I speak more authentically my own. Whether hot or cold, the brew I concoct will be mine. I will have integrity and a clear conscience that the choices I made were deliberate, not demanded. Perhaps this is a better gift than success after all.