The True Society of Charity

The more we are alone with God, the more we are with one another, in darkness, yet a multitude. And the more we go out to one another in work and activity and communication, according to the will and charity of God, the more we are multiplied to him, and yet we are in solitude.

The more we are alone, the more we are together; the more we are together, and the more we are in society, the true society of charity, not of cities and crowds, the more we are alone with him. For in my soul and in your soul, I find the same Christ who is our Life, and he finds himself in our love, and together we all find paradise, which is the sharing of his love for his father in the person of their spirit.

—Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation

With help from Mr. Merton and moved by the Holy Spirit, I've been dwelling lately on solitude and aloneness, crowding and community. This past weekend, resting at a monastery in southern Michigan with a friend, breathed life into so many of these nebulous musings, and my mind and heart are still bending in the heaviness of that wind. Here are a few of those thoughts.

Healthy, life-giving solitude and healthy, life-giving community cannot exist apart from each other. Without the grounding of "the true society of charity," solitude is only aloneness; without the soul-space of holy solitude, the collective is nothing but a crowd. I think that most of us in this life experience neither solitude nor society. Rather, the introverts among us withdraw from the crowd that jostles us, nursing our bruises in the solace of aloneness. The extroverts among us drink in the analgesic of the crowd to numb the empty pangs of isolation.

I am beginning to think that introversion and extroversion are actually the same: they are the reactions of overwrought human beings to this pathological cycle of crowding and aloneness and anesthesia and withdrawal. But where there are abundant love, support, and nurture from many nearby sources, a person can be secluded but not isolated. And when a person attains the openness that only solitude brings, she can give of herself with abandon to love and the well-being of the collective.

I am an introvert, and I seek solitude. But when I am alone, I feel Alone. I never experience the true solitude I crave, because my solitude is not punctuated by the society of charity, living love flowing around and through me, ever-present and full of grace. I only withdraw to nurse my bruises. My dear, precious friends are so lonely, though we eat together and sit together and hold hands and say over and over "I love you, I really do." They are alone, and I am alone, and we can do nothing to relieve each other's aloneness because we are but a collection of alone souls and not a community. We do not share life so much as we comfort each other in our shared isolation. And we leave each other behind, seeking the togetherness that we do not have together, and all our hearts break, again and again, as we see each other off to the next seclusion or crowd, and the next.

This weekend, I spent a lot of time by myself. I walked and walked and walked among the trees, I sat in stillness and read and wrote and slept and sang to myself and to my God. And I felt whole and peaceful. I spend most moments of most days fleeing an encroaching inky gloom, a black beast that threatens to swallow me each time I let my guard down for a rest. But this weekend, the beast took leave of its pursuit, left me to my solitude, and I was Not Alone. I was Not Alone because I was not alone. This weekend, I glimpsed With.

A monastery is a keenly With place, a complex and harmonious chorus of solitary lives melded in a communal Life. I felt a bit of this With, in part because I was there with someone. Not only was the With present, but I belonged to it, and it to me. This With sustained my solitude, allowed me a depth of soul-space and rest that I never experience. It permitted me the gift of bowing to, altering my behavior to benefit and nurture another. It was a shelter in which to be humble, to bow beside. What rare treasures are opportunities to love and be loved quietly, in mundane, unseen ways, to share the small things of life and faith, to bow to and to bow beside again and again and again. Rarer all the time.

For 48 blessed hours, I couldn't ache or cry.

Returning to the aloneness and crowd was a shock; the world felt strange, like cardboard and molasses, and I wanted to flee it. I don't know what it means, what to do. I don't know how to find the true society of charity. Has anyone out there ever seen it? Can true society be had outside monastery walls? Can it be had regardless of geography? Can it be had though hundreds of miles separate its members? Is there genuine, abiding connection? Is there hope?

I came across this on the monastery's website, and I've been considering writing my own liturgy of life, that my life may be an embodiment of the true society of charity. But my isolation and increasing distance from most of the love in my life discourage me from it. I wonder if a virtual monastery is possible: friends and soul-siblings all over the world sharing life by embodying the same values and walking in the same rhythm. Like the one sun. Like the one Christ. I'm not good at starting things, but maybe I ought to try. Maybe this ravenous hankering of mine is the high and holy purpose of the One.

Let us pray.