Solitude

You need to try it, at least once a year.

A coffee shop is a good place to go, or a graveyard; or any other quiet place where people don’t expect much of you and are more or less unlikely to strike up lengthy conversations.

It’s good for every man to lay down his accessories from time to time—the add-ons that start feeling like identity. A phone, a job, a position, a persona. Lay it down. Lay down the cooking spatula and the dusting rag, lay down the little child always on the lap.

Come apart and rest.

If the thought of being alone for several hours with no resources and no periphery is terribly exciting, you might be due. Likewise if it’s terrifying. And perhaps most of all if it’s just silly, because you don’t need it and you’re doing just fine, thank you. Then you’re really due.

You may read. You may pray. You may write. You may sit and do nothing.

It’s good to remember there’s an inner person who can be distinguished from the outer, a Being who isn’t about Doing, an entity of its own. It’s good to bring that entity into silence before the Father.