As usual, the idea was God’s, not mine, when He almost literally threw me on my back with rheumatic fever just after I turned thirty. I was a Poor Clare nun, living in a monastery I had joined in 1959. I’d given myself to the life with a passion that apparently exceeded my physical energy and suddenly, instead of bouncing back after a routine appendectomy, I was facing six months to a year of near bed rest. It was my first experience with solitude and I wasn’t charmed by it. No! I was just plain lonely and bored.
Still, when I had recovered sufficiently to rejoin the community for at least part of the time, I found myself longing for the quiet space of solitude where the Lord had often felt so close. My “answer” was a gradually increasing experience of fatigue and pain, finally diagnosed as fibrobyalgia. FM is a condition that waxes and wanes so there were frequent periods where I spent most of the day in my cell, following the community observances from a distance. I was surprised by how content I would feel during these quieter periods.
One day I read an article about eremitic life in “Review for Religous” and it seemed like Someone had pulled on a light cord. THIS IS IT! my spirit cried. “Oh, no, it’s not,” my heart said. “You are called to community life as a Franciscan and follower of St. Clare.” However, once I had “seen the light”, I could never be entirely satisfied. I struggled with myself, my spiritual guides, my sisters in religious life, and my horrified family over the next five years but, in the end, I followed the Light to an empty parish house in the mountains of West Virginia. When the bishop declined torenew my permission to stay there, I found refuge in a half-finished cabin in a “holler” which the owner had vacated with the law on his heels for growing and selling marijuana!
I settled into the challenges of learning to live without indoor plumbing (oh, those frozen trips to the outhouse!); pulling wagon loads of milk jugs filled with water from my neighbors; learning how to keep warm with wood heat, and trying to earn a living with my needle and typewriter (back in the day before computers were common). Six rich and fruitful years followed. Then the Lord knocked on my heart again, inviting me to join my life with Paul Fredette, the Catholic pastor of that West Virginia parish.
A new form of hermit life began – a shared one. To many, this may sound like a contradiction in terms and perhaps it is. But together we are nurturing contemporary hermit life around the world through Raven’s Bread Ministries and trying to be faithful to the mysterious God of our hearts.
I invite comments, discussion questions and personal sharing from readers of this brief account. Does any of this ring a bell with YOUR experience? Let us hear from you.
I am married for almost 25 years now. We have 5 children and almost 7 grandchildren. I work as a nurse in the infirmary at Abbey of Gethsemane in rural Kentucky. I, too, have been searching for a more simple life of solitude. I look forward to reading more of your work. As I was just shown an article by a monk friend of mine. Thank you so much for the beautiful insights and for sharing your journey ❤
Very interesting path. We share the mountain too. My retreat Hawkscry is in Sandy Mush. I am sure you are familiar with Richard Rhor who also embraces the contemplative way.
Thank you both for sharing your awesome experiences with us.
=D
When I turn within, as an indweller in devotion to ONENESS Spirit Conscience, I stop looking outside in Duality suffering for happiness, except to welcome Authentic Guidance co-creations of my denied fear contaminants, still haunting me from Karmic divisive-gender role-reversal lifetimes, that need more gentle-forgiveness, kind-compassion, and Unifying Mercy. Without me in our World 😉 there would be no ‘you’ mirror, to forgive in a Kind World 🙂 (:
I am delighted to discover a welcome hermitage for other Lovers of solitude, so I am sharing my solitude motive to continual forgiveness prayer, that welcomes Immortal Love nuances for me to write every day to learn to live Loved in a life of Beauty, and Truth. I like to imagine my renouncing a sort of mob-rule fear-ridden posse collective consciousness is, to replace physical favor with ONENESS Spirit Conscience favor in a priority hierarchy, instead.
The more I renounce the World of fear Illusion, Maya, the more I become Delighted to Love `everyone, `everything, for~everywhere, to my devoted Please-and-Thank-you surprise, shared Pleasance. I can see Love now, so I can Love now, see? Enlightening Liquefiable Love energy Effulgence flows from above, down, and throughout, as long as I continually forgive all the twists, and turns of long-held shame, so I can get out of the way, and welcome Coherent Spirit, replete, timeless, inviolate, and invisible.
ABSOLUTELY BEAUTIFULLY PUT SISTER IN
PEACE!
Oh my! I get the absolute beauty of your words, thank you!
As I stumble forward, slouching but eager to follow that Holy Whisper, “Come beloved, come! I am Real, I am True, I Will lead you Home”. Blind trusting, I am hurrying like a one-year old taking first steps, trying to remember from moment to moment, trying to remember your beckoning whisper, appearing witless, even dumbfounded or saneless. I follow with grateful heart and thankful soul, you heard me crying, you heard my weeping for home! Thank you. Amen.