The Importance of Solitude in a Complicated and Chaotic World
Note on the text: I used Henri Nouwen’s Clowning in Rome: Reflections on Solitude, Celibacy, Prayer, and Contemplation as published in 2000 by Doubleday
The world is a complicated place and any theology that does not recognize that, much less any theology that attempts to dumb it down into overly simplistic categories isn’t doing us any favors. Which is why I love the way Nouwen talks about the need for solitude in a beautiful, yet complicated and chaotic world. Because he doesn’t mean that we need to run from that crazy world, but that living in that beautifully chaotic world to the best of our abilities means creating a space in our lives for solitude.
Nouwen lived in Rome for many years, and the reflections in this book sprang from the observations he had while living there:
When we look out over the city of Rome, walk in its streets or ride its buses, we quickly realize that it is a crowded city full of [people]. . . . We see men and women moving quickly in all directions, we hear [both] joyful and angry voices mixed with a great variety of street sounds. . . . It is a busy, congested city in which life manifests itself with all its boisterous intensity (35-36).
So he knows how beautifully chaotic life can be and it’s from this vantage point that he writes about solitude
“Solitude is the place where we find our identity” (19). Solitude is something that we all desperately need and not in a way that deliberately separates us from other people. We need each other, we need community. We need to have fulfilling and powerful relationships of all types with each other. And it’s because of that need for enriching and truly authentic relationships that we need solitude.
For Nouwen solitude is simply the space where an individual can discover who he or she is without any outside pressure. This is important because the more that a person is able to really understand and embrace who they are, the more that they will be able to engage in those fulfilling, soul enriching relationships that they are yearning for.
When a person doesn’t have a strong sense of self, it’s easy for them to get sucked into all sorts of toxic relationships and even punch unnecessary holes into otherwise healthy ones, and make otherwise healthy and stable relationships unstable “according to moods, personal attractions, and mutual [incompatibilities]” (14).
Solitude however gives a platform through which we can get to know ourselves better and therefore create more stable relationships with others. Without solitude
we begin to worry about what we think and feel about each other, we quickly become suspicious of each other or irritated with each other, and we begin, often in unconscious ways, to scrutinize each other with a tiring hypersensitivity. Without solitude shallow conflicts easily grow deep and become painful wounds. . . . With solitude we are protected against the harmful effects of mutual suspicions, and our words and actions become more joyful expressions of an already existing trust rather than a subtle way of asking for proof of trustworthiness (15).
When I really know myself and can therefore be more fully myself then I don’t need you to tell me who I am or somehow validate who I am. Which means that we can simply to have a fully authentic relationship where I can both love you as the person that I am and be loved by you as the person that I am. That is how the most incredible and fulfilling relationships of all types are born, and that doesn’t happen if I don’t give myself the space, which, again, is all Nouwen means by the word “solitude”, to really discover and embrace who I am. Which is why it is so vitally important for all of us, in whatever way we can, to create some space in our life for “solitude”. It’s not so that we can run from the world and the people in it, but so that we might be able to embrace the world more fully and in a more authentic way.
